Requiem On Paper Wings
by Renegade Havoc
Summary: Armed with the dark twin of the Lotus Blade and a hidden branch of Monkey Kung Fu, Ron sets out to avenge Kim's death. Also starring Drakken, Shego, Wade, and a host of new characters - generous amounts of buttkicking action included.
1. Prologue: Last Regrets

Requiem On Paper Wings

* * *

Prologue: Last Regrets

* * *

The figure clad in a black raincoat walked, with painful slowness, through the entrance of Middleton Cemetery, his only companion the thin raindrops falling like tears on and around him. The cemetery, a quiet place at best, was completely deserted at three in the morning, leaving him to walk, with fluid grace and utter silence towards his goal: a simple marble memorial, surrounded by fresh flowers and candles long extinguished by the rain. On the stone was new embellishment; a graduation cap, left on top of the grave marker like a gift, and a simple card that read, "To Kimmy, From Monique."

_ I wonder how Monique is doing. _

_ I don't know why I keep doing this to myself._

A bouquet of white roses was clutched in his right hand, his left thrust inside his coat jacket. His dyed-black hair was completely drenched, the bangs lying across his forehead and his eyes like a mourning veil. Despite the torrents falling down his face, his gaze never left the memorial, burning its stark image… burning her memory… once more into the depths of his mind.

Not all of the water flowing down his cheeks was rain.

_I'm tired. I'm so tired._

_ I don't know how long I can keep going on._

He stopped a few feet from the marker, standing stock still for half a minute before slowly dropping to his knees. He placed the bouquet in front of the memorial with loving carefulness, being sure not to knock away the other wreaths and flowers laid there. There were many; among those he could easily see, despite the twilight, the names written on the cards. He could read them because he knew who they were from; Tim, Jim, the Drs. Possible, his own family, all of their classmates and friends from Middleton High, Dr. Director, even Wade, the reclusive genius, had left his room to pay homage to the lovely redhead.

_My redhead. My Kim. My KP._

_ I don't know why I'm still fighting._

He raised his right hand, pressing the pads of two fingers to his lips like a silent prayer, before reaching out to touch the rain-kissed marble marker. He knew it was his imagination, but he thought he could feel warmth in stone. The same warmth she always had, for everything and everyone, but especially for him. The warmth she had before… before it all happened.

_I wonder if you're looking at me right now._

_ I wonder if you're having fun where you are. I hope so._

_ Just a little longer, KP. I'll be there soon._

_ There's just one more thing that I need to do._

_ When I've found him and sent him where he belongs…_

_ …then, then I can be with you again. Again. Forever._

He closed his eyes to murmur a quiet prayer for her. The small scar on the left side of his chin started throbbing again, the way it always did when it rained, or when he thought of her. He didn't mind the rain, though. It was only right that sky would weep this day, the second anniversary of…

His eyes screwed shut, the tears beginning to overwhelm him. It was supposed to have been the second anniversary, not of her death, but of _them_. Together. Forever.

His left hand reached up, a metal replacement for the hand he lost on that black day, to absently stroke at the ring he still kept on a silver chain, around his neck. Dr. James Possible himself had helped, using the remnants of the Project Hephaestus technology to create a cybernetic replacement. It was a glorious piece of work, responsive, feeling, articulate, almost exactly like a real hand…

… except that his engagement ring would no longer fit on it.

He took a dozen deep breaths, trying to calm down, trying to stop the abyss from reaching up and swallowing him whole. Even if all he wanted was to fade to black and never come back… no. He couldn't do that. Not yet.

_I have to go now, KP._

He opened his eyes, the lonely pain pushed back one more day. He leaned over to tenderly kiss the gravestone one last time, before rising to his feet, the ebon-black katana slung across his back bumping against his thighs as he did so. He could hear it in his head again, the chittering of a million monkeys, goading, accusing, waiting for him to release them again, through his fists and feet. To unleash the Power once more, to fight, and maybe for a few seconds, to forget.

He was about to leave when something caught his eye: an slightly faded picture, still vibrant in the rain, probably placed there by Dr. Mr. or Mrs. Possible. It was a snapshot taken after her junior prom night, her beautiful face matched only by her smile as she stood, hand in hand, with a blond haired geek, who was smiling from ear to ear.

He turned around to start walking away.

_Everything died, along with her, on that oil rig two years ago. Everything I know, everything I cared about, everything that made me happy, made me smile, died along with her two years ago. The only thing left to me is the mission._

_ I will continue the mission. I will continue to keep fighting them, just as KP would have wanted me to. I will keep fighting until I find _him_, and I send him where he can't harm anyone else anymore, ever. I hope I can make her proud, just like she was so proud of Ronald Dean Stoppable._

_ My name is… _no.

_My name _was _Ronald Dean Stoppable. Ron Stoppable, bumbling sidekick, aspiring cook, all around geek… but most importantly, Kim Possible's best friend. Her boyfriend. The one she was going to marry when they left college._

_ Ron Stoppable is dead._

_ All that is left to me is a new mission and a new call sign._

_ Force._

_ Unstoppable Force._

He stepped out of the cemetery, the raincoat's hood over his head, even as the rain was beginning to stop.

He still had a mission to accomplish.


	2. Prelude 1: Dancing Into Oblivion

Prelude 1: Dancing Into Oblivion

* * *

Middleton, Two Years Before

"Naco maniac, COMIN' THROUGH!"

The glass doors of Bueno Nacho swung wide open as a blond meteorite streaked inside, his feet skidding to a stop right in front of the counter with perfect timing, smoke rising from the soles of his sneakers.

"Boo-YAH! Time to grab some mad munchies! My man Ned, what's on tap today? The Rondster has got the FEVER, and the only sure cure is MORE NACO!"

Ned, assistant manager of the local Bueno Nacho #582 (an important and respected position, never mind that there were ever rarely more than two people working at a time in this particular establishment), blinked once. "Ron? Ron, is that really you?" He squinted at the grinning teen in front of him, one hand arranging the glasses in front of his eyes. "Jeez, man, where have you been?"

Ronald Dean Stoppable, bumbling sidekick, aspiring cook, and more recently, the one and ONLY boyfriend of Kim Possible ("Boo-YAH!"), just kept on grinning. "I, my faithful friend and server of excellent food, have been to none other than the Big C for the past two years."

Ned just blinked. "Uh. Manhattan?"

"Not New York, you schmuck!" Ron laughed. "That's the Big A, not the Big C! To set the record straight, the Big C is none other than, DUN-DUN, college!" He stepped back and placed both hands on his hips. "You, my friend, are looking at a man who is on his way to finishing his Master's in Culinary Arts, AND, may I add, someone who was offered a scholarship to Cordon Bleu!"

"Y-you're kidding!" Ned's jaw dropped. "Isn't that…?"

Ron just crossed his arms and gave him a look of total and utter smugness, his eyebrows moving up and down like a typewriter's arms. "Oh, it IS. It IS all that, and more! Yes, Ned my friend, the academe of the world have finally accepted that I, Ronald Dean Stoppable, have the BON-DIGGITY cooking SKILLZ! BOOOOOOO-YAH! The most leetsauce school of cooking in the WORLD has come knocking on my door!"

"Wow, Ron! Congratulations! Here…" Ned reached under the counter for a container of chips and sauce, as well as a tray. "This one's on the house."

"You are the rockzor, dog! Mmmm, the Diablo Ultra. Just the cure for homesickness!" Ron leaned over to sniff at the chips. "Mmm, this is exactly just what the doctor ordered."

A skittering noise made itself known, as Rufus crawled up to Ron's shoulder, sniffing at the nachos in the exact same way Ron was sniffing. After a few seconds, Rufus made a happy rodent noise, flashing a thumbs up first to Ron, and then to Ned.

Ron grinned and patted the molerat. "Yeah, I think the little guy appreciates it too. I'll sit over at the usual spot, Ned. Muchos gracias, my amigo."

"Not a problem, Ron." Ned blinked and fixed his glasses again. "Um, you seem pretty happy to be here today, Ron. Was college that bad?"

It seemed to Ned that the grin, impossible as that seemed, only got wider. "Nah, dog, college was pretty cool. My prof for Culinary Arts totally ruled, and the class was awesome. Where else can you eat and study at the same time?"

"Really? But I mean, what about the rest of college? Didn't you have to, you know, study and stuff?"

The grin was still there and not getting any smaller, but Ned thought he saw something else- the beginnings of a blush, improbable as that seemed on Ron Stoppable's face. "Well… shyeah, it was, kinda, but, um, you know… I had… well, you know, KP got my back, helped me out lots for the other stuff."

"KP? You mean… Ms. Possible?" Ned leaned over on the counter, one elbow on its surface. "Are you and her, still… you know… ?"

Ned thought that the goofy grin would split Ron's face in half. "Shyeah, man, we're still, y'know, down. Been that way for three years now. KP's been such a big help in college and stuff, y'know, I mean, if it wasn't for her… I dunno if I'd even be in college right now."

_Good grief_, Ned thought. Did the man have any idea what his face looked like whenever he talked about Kim Possible? His voice dropped just that much, whenever he even referred to her. It was crazy, he thought… here was Ron Stoppable, back for summer vacation straight out of college, not a thing changed… except for that one little thing. That one little thing with red hair.

Ron was _so_ whipped.

* * *

"Intelligence confirms it, sir. Both subjects return to Middleton tonight."

"And our preparations?"

"Complete. Epeius is ready to initiate on your word, sir."

"What about the boy? Did he… ?"

"We followed the money, sir. He purchased the item."

"Excellent. Then if our comrades in psychiatric profiling are correct, he will most likely propose tonight. Barely a year before he finishes school, and on the most important night of his life – that is when we initiate."

"We've been waiting for this minor confluence of factors?"

"You know _nothing_. Hanuman must not walk away from tonight sad, lonely, depressed, or any of those inadequate emotions. Our Icarus must ascend, must fly to the very apex of the heavens – and then, _only then_, we shall make him _fall._

We shall make him _crash_.

And we shall make him _break_."


	3. Prelude 2: Banquet Beneath The Sword

Prelude 2: Banquet Beneath The Sword

* * *

"Ronnie-man! Boy, you are looking fine! C'mere and give me a hug!"

"Heya, Monique!" Ron leaned up and got inadvertently squashed as Monique enfolded him in a crushing bear hug. "Ooof, are all future fashion designers built with wrestler muscles these days? These are grade-A prime future chef bones, y'know!"

Monique just laughed and sat down across Ron's customary table. Between them, Rufus was already working on his fourth set of chips. "Oh, c'mon, boy, I don't see you for two years, and this is all the hello I get? I'ma gonna tell on you to your girl, don't you think I won't."

"Sheesh, Monique, not that!" Ron groaned. "I'm in enough trouble as it is. She still doesn't know that I might have to take extra classes next year if I didn't ace my physics final."

"Well, Ronnie, that's why honesty is the best policy when dealing with your girl. B'sides, she's a crazy secret agent lady. What makes ya think she ain't found that out yet, huh, Rondster?"

Ron looked away furtively, scratching at the back of his neck. "Gee, I dunno… I was kinda hoping… dumb luck, maybe? I dunno, I just…" he gave a long sigh and slumped. "I dunno, Monique, I just don't wanna, y'know, be all uncool and disappoint her… I mean… like, she, like, believes in me so much, and stuff…"

"And you don't wanna disappoint her?" Monique's voice was so soft it could barely be heard.

"…well… um…" Ron had started blushing. "Yeah, y'know, I don't, cuz…"

Monique tossed her head back and laughed softly. "Boy, you are _such_ a hopeless softie, don'cha know that?"

"AM NOT!" Ron objected heatedly.

"Are too," Monique grinned.

"Moni, we're not in high school anymore," the blonde grumped.

She was still grinning. "No, we're sure not, but you're still blushing like you were a kiddie with a crush in Pre-K, hun."

"….grmplemttergrn…" Ronald's face was nearly crimson red at this point.

"What's that, Ronnie?" She knew when she had won.

"….sigh." Ron slumped even lower in his seat, and absently reaches out for a nacho chip. "Yeah, you're right. I dunno, why, with her, I just… y'know. I don't ever wanna do anything to disappoint her in me."

"Doy. That's because you're madly in love with her, Ron." Monique reached over to pat his arm. He was _so _hopelessly _cute_ like this.

Ron just nibbled at his chip, still looking down. "Yeah. I do love her. Madly. Like, Twelve-Alarm Diablo Sauce madly."

"Awww." Monique couldn't help herself, and patted the downcast blond on the head. "And she loves you too, can't you see that? That's why, no matter what you do, your girl ain't never gonna be disappointed in you. She's just fine like that, our Kim is."

Ron was still looking down. "Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, Moni… 'specially when she isn't there… I wake up, a little scared, cuz I don't know, why. Why me? Why did I ever get so lucky? I'm not complaining, but… it feels like a dream, y'know? And I don't _ever_ wanna wake up. Ever." He looked up at her, his eyes dreamy. "You know how I need a nightlight to sleep? Ever since Camp Wannaweep?"

She rolled her eyes. "You only told that story ten million times."

"Hey! It was a traumatic experience, y'know?" he retorted, grinning all the same. "Anyway…" His left arm torn open a packet of Diablo sauce, helpfully spreading it over Rufus' new batch of chips. "So, the first night in college, I was in my dorm right? So, there I was, getting ready to sleep, when, POOFSH, my nightlight goes out. And I think, ok, Ron, don't panic, you're a college boy now. But I just couldn't sleep, I still got scared of the dark, my imagination going wild, right?"

"It was in the middle of the night, I was hunched over on my bed, clutching at my pillow and blanket. I couldn't take it anymore. So I grabbed my Kimmunicator and called up KP. Middle of the night, I panicked just like that."

"I don't even remember what I said. All I remember next was that she walked into my room, sat next to me, and gave me a hug." Ron had a faraway look in his eyes. "Just like that. And she held me, all the way till the morning. I just remember waking up, and there she was, asleep, her hair all mussed up in that cute way every morning, her head on my shoulder. And then, I remember thinking…" Ron paused for a second. "… I remember thinking, that this was the best, most bon-diggity, downright boo-yah morning of my entire life. And you know something else? I've never needed a nightlight ever since that morning. Ever."

Monique sat there, listening in rapt attention. "Ron. Oh. My. Gosh. You are SO going to end up making me squeal."

"Ewww-kay, Moni, just chill," Ron answered wryly.

"But… but that… that's just too _cute_!" Monique squealed in utter delight.

"Cute and me don't go too well together, Moni, kinda like molasses and Diablo are some things you just don't blend."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatev-AR, Ronald Dean Stoppable. Now, on to more important things."

Ron sipped at his soda, playing with the bendable straw. "Like?"

"Don't you give me that lip, young man, you know darn well what Moni's cooking, cuz you're cooking the same thing." She moved forward and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper that Ron could barely hear. "Remember that thing you told me, over messenger? You know… The Big Question?"

The soda dropped from Ron's limp hand. "Monique! Not so loud!" he hissed.

"Ron. There's only you, me, Rufus, and Ned in this Bueno Nacho. Me and Rufus are already in on this. And I'm still not sure Ned counts as a person," she deadpanned.

"Well, yeah, but…"

"If you people are going to discuss my shortcomings then feel free to discuss it out of my hearing range," they heard from the front counter. "Please?"

Monique just giggled and scooted closer to Ron. "Well?"

Ron looked furtively left and right, before reaching into his pocket for what looked like a miniature vault. "Rufus," he called.

The naked molerat turned, saluted, and with cheerful chittering, placed his paws on the vault's front, seemingly pressing numerous tiny buttons.

"Ooooh-kay…" Monique commented, nonplussed.

"I made it myself, with a little help from Wade, though he doesn't know what it's for. It's got a twin tumbler lock that'll only open when it receives input from two sets of voices and two sets of fingerprints- mine and Rufus'. Pretty badical, huh?" He grinned.

"Well, at least I can tell who'll be best man. Or molerat. You've actually been doing a little inventing on the side, Ronnie boy?"

He just shrugged. "Yeah. For some reason, ever since I started, um…" he blushed again, "…started going out with KP, I've actually gotten pretty good with gadgets. I upgraded my moped, and I rigged it so that my Xbox can play PS2 and GameCube games too!" he reported proudly.

Monique shook her head. "Sounds almost like when you turned into Zorpox."

"Can we forget that ever happened? Please? Sheesh. Besides, I don't do death rays. That's strictly bad guy stuff."

Monique giggled again. "I'm just playin' with ya, Stoppable. Now lemme see this rock of yours."

A metallic voice drifted out from the small box that Rufus was now holding up to Ronald. "Rufus voiceprint and password, matched and accepted. Now waiting for Ronald voiceprint and password."

Ronald leaned down, and in a soft, tender voice, whispered, "Me and KP, together forever."

"Melting, Ron. I can't believe that's your password. I am SO melting."

"Shh, Moni, you'll mess up the voiceprint!" Ron warned her.

"Ronald voiceprint and password, matched and accepted. Unlocking." With the faintest hiss of hydraulics, the miniature vault opened up and outward, unfolding like a cardboard box. Monique leaned even closer to peer inside, seeing a velvet lining…

… and snuggled inside all that lining, a pair of perfect gold rings, each topped with a single exquisite diamond.

"Oh. My. Gosh. Omigosh. Omigoshomisgoshomigosh." Monique was almost hopping in her seat with delight. "Ronald! What did you do to get these? Rob a bank?"

"Shyeah right! The Rondster does not need to resort to such lowdown schemes. I got it with my money of course, from my part time jobs."

"Stoppable, stop yanking my crank. I work in the fashion industry, remember? I know my rocks, hun, and those twins right there are pure 24 carat bling bling. Heck, boy, those rings alone are worth ten grand, easy! And you expect me to believe you got those from being a fifth-grade teacher's assistant?"

"Hey, dude, those kids were cool," Ronald answered back defensively.

"That's not the point, Ronald Stoppable!"

"Well, it _was_ from my part time job!"

Monique raised an eyebrow and gave him a pointedly incredulous look. "Let me guess. You dipped into your trust fund from the Naco deal you made with Bueno Nacho. Am I right or am I right, Rondster?"

He twiddled his thumbs. "Um. That counts as a part time job."

"Good grief, son, didn't you make a few bajillion from that deal? _Not _including the amount that Drakken stole from you?"

"Yeah, come to think of it, carrying ninety-nine million dollars in my pants was a pretty stupid idea…"

Monique grabbed him by the shoulders. And shook him. Repeatedly. "Stopppable. How. Much. Were. The. Rocks."

"I don't know!" Ron wailed. "I just, you know, went to the jewelry store my friend in college told me about and I just, you know, told them to make me the best one! And then I signed them some dumb check and that was that!"

"… so, basically, you went and blew all your hard-earned money to get Kimmy an engagement ring with a rock half the size of the moon."

"Um." He looked sheepish. "Shyeah, I guess I did."

"And whatever possessed you to do that, Ronnie-boy?"

"Um." He looked away and twiddled his fingers again, blushing hard. "Cuz… you know… I mean, shyeah, the money was cool and all… but, y'know, I only get one chance at this, right? And, I mean, I wanna do it right and stuff. And it's for KP, so, you know, the money's not really all _that_ much of a big… right?"

Monique glomphed him with a bone-shattering bear hug. "Ron, my boy, you and Kimmy are gonna end up just fine. Happily-ever-after-fine, boy."

"Really, Moni? Gee, that sounds really cool. I'd like that a lot. Yeah, I'd like that a whole lot." That boy, Monique mused, could light up a stadium with that goofy grin.

"Now go and wipe that grin off your face, boy, you're making me jealous," Monique joked. "And tell me about the rest of your college life…"

* * *

Unknown to either of the two, a nondescript gray car had been parked at the lot across the Bueno Nacho, with a pair of men inside, paying close attention indeed to Ron. One of them had a pair of nightvision binoculars trained upon the blond, while the other was speaking on an encrypted millimeter-wave radio. Both men were former special forces, hardened veterans of brutal war. Both men were current intelligence officers, serving a respected, worldwide crimefighting organization.

Both men worked for Global Justice.

"This is recon team Alpha. The intelligence was correct. We are in position at Waypoint Beta, and we are maintaining surveillance."

A soft, cultured voice answered from the other end. "Continue surveillance. Teams Bravo and Charlie are in position and will support you in case of an emergency. I sincerely hope that will not be required."

"Negative, sir," the officer on the line replied. "Code Hanuman has no idea we're even here. We will continue the surveillance until Code Briseis arrives. Recommend initiation of Project Epeius."

"Recommendation noted. Phase One initiation code: Dies Irae. Project Epeius is now in effect. Your good work will not be forgotten, gentlemen."

The figure on the other end of the line killed the connection, and sat back in his plush office chair. He steepled his fingers, and rested his elbows on his office desk, his forehead furrowed in concentration.

"Epeius?" This came from a slender, elegant man with long red hair lounging on a sofa across the desk. He held a glass of red wine in one hand, and idly toyed with a rapier in the other. "You've always been somewhat… esoteric, my dear, esteemed leader, but really now. Epeius?"

The older man harrumphed. "It is neither my fault nor my responsibility that your education has been less than thorough." He slowly stood up and moved to the large window that overlooked the rest of the city, his arms folded behind his back. "Epeius, my faithful, ignorant assassin, was the name of the man truly responsible for the Greek victory over Troy. Odysseus planned the wooden horse, true, and he led the attack into the city. But it was Epeius who created the Trojan horse, who allowed the Greek plan to even come into fruition."

The long-haired younger man crossed his legs and laughed mirthlessly. "And how does this relate to our current objective, sir?"

"Simply put, we have found our Epeius," the older man answered, without turning around. "We have found the one who will build our Trojan horse, the one who will grant us entry into the unbreachable city and the treasures that lie therein." A slow, cruel smile spread over his face. "In less than six hours, Kimberly Ann Possible will die in a sudden and tragic accident, just another victim of the forces of evil. Her death shall spark a fire that will spread across the whole world and forge the key to Project Epeius." He turned his head slightly to look at the two Global Justice dossiers that lay upon his desk. One was marked Ronald Dean Stoppable. The other one was marked Kimberly Ann Possible.

Stamped on the second folder, in blood red letters, was a single word.

Deceased.

"And in less than five years after the death of his partner, his best friend, and his girlfriend, Ronald Dean Stoppable, former agent of Global Justice, will become the key that opens the gates of Troy."


	4. Prelude 3: Everything And Nothing

Prelude 3: Everything And Nothing

It was nearly closing time at Bueno Nacho when Kim finally arrived. Ned would have closed shop much earlier, considering that Ron and Monique were the only two customers that entire night (three, if one counted Rufus), but Ron had asked him a special favor, and Ned somewhat uncharacteristically agreed to wait an hour past closing time.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, you guys. My parents were just so happy to see me back from college that they invited my relatives over, so, you know, I had to go and greet them all." Kim dropped her handbag on the seat next to Ron, absently touching his hand as she talked. "Moni! How have you been, girl?"

* * *

"Briseis has arrived, sir."

"Excellent. Status on Epeius?"

"Project Epeius is one hour into Phase One. Everything is prepped and ready, sir – we are go for Phase Two on receipt of the codeword."

"Requiem Lacrimosa – I repeat, _Requiem Lacrimosa_. The order is _given_."

"Acknowledged – Phase Two in effect." The line went dead.

The red haired man raised an inquisitive eyebrow. In response, the older man nodded to him. "The pieces are in place."

The younger man sighed, and set his wineglass down on the desk carefully. "I suppose that's my cue, then." He stretched out his arms above his head, gripping the rapier's hilt in one hand. "It's a hunter's moon tonight – a perfect backdrop, methinks, for the death and chaos soon to follow." His arm dropped down, the rapier's tip a gray firefly flash. "I'll deal with the loose ends first."

The white haired man turned slightly to look at him, a disapproving frown on his face. "Make their deaths quick and painless. They were good men who served well, and deserve no less for that."

"Oh, I _suppose_ so," he replied, pouting with exaggerated reluctance. "You certainly know how to put a damper on a night out."

"That's an _order_."

"I'm stubborn, not deaf, my dear commander." The younger man had already turned to leave, waving a casual farewell, before pausing at the doorway and slightly turning his head. "And the girl?"

The older man's lips curved sadistically. "I suppose you do deserve some amusement. Make her death… _memorable_."

The answering smile was equally cruel.

* * *

Some nights, Ronald Stoppable decided, were just perfect. Tonight was one of them. Actually, tonight was probably the best of them.

His head was resting comfortably on Kim's shoulder, his fingers absently filching a cheese-soaked nacho now and then, as his girlfriend – the bestest, awesomest girlfriend in the world, and HIS – animatedly discussed the merits of Maybelline, flattops, college malls, and Eat Pray Love with Monique.

Okay, so Kim wasn't perfect – what_ever_. She was still the awesomest.

He was about to make a snide remark to Moni about the relationship between women, credit cards, and global warming when their communicators beeped.

"Drat," Kim grumbled at she glanced at hers. "Sorry, Moni-bear, but we're gonna have to take this one." Her elbow gently started nudging Ron into awareness.

Monique gave her an amused look. "Ahem – work?"

"Oh, come on, we just started summer vacation! They promised us!" Ron protested, jolted out of his idle paradise. "Can't they cut us some slack? I thought they were forming some fancy new team for the small stuff-"

"C'mon, Ronnie," the redhead grinned as she tugged on his slack arm. "It's some costumed moron on an oil rig – probably Dementor or something. We'll be back in Middleton in an hour, tops!"

The freckled young man grumbled as he pulled on his jacket. "Drakk seriously needs to talk to his friends in the supervillain business a little better. Which part of 'offer of general amnesty' did they NOT understand?"

"Please – half the time he still thinks he's in the middle of another world domination scheme before he realizes he's sitting in a board meeting. He's been legit for over a year now and he STILL hides from the cops." She glanced down again.

"C'mon, Ronnie-boy, up and at it," Monique teased him in a singsong voice, as he picked up his drink to gulp it down. "You know what they say – the married couple that spies together, stays together."

Ronald spluttered and coughed, barely managing to turn his head and not spit his orange soda in anybody's direction.

"Hmm?" Kim blinked, looking up from her communicator. "Did you say something, Monique?"

"Lil' ol' moi? Natch, girl," she replied with a saucy grin. "Just remonstratin' to your boy here, that's all."

"Gosh, Moni, but we're really in a rush – we'll catch up tomorrow, okay! Promise, nothing but you, me, and shopping!"

"Lookin' forward to that, sistah." Monique winked at Ron, and mouthed to him as Kim turned away to yank her sleepy boyfriend. "_Pop the Question!"_

"You know I got much love for Moni, KP," Ron grumbled as he half stumbled out of the nacho franchise, "I really do, but there are times when I seriously wonder how much easier my life would be if I, I dunno, buried her in concrete."

His girlfriend just laughed – _god, how he loved to hear her laugh! _– and punched him affectionately in the arm. "It's just gonna be me and Monique tomorrow – girl time. You won't have to drag our shopping bags around, I promise."

"Ow! Unless something terrible happens to your car," Ron muttered under his breath, rubbing his arm. "Which probably will."

"There is that," Kim replied cheerfully.

"So, explain to me what I'm doing with you on the curb, freezing my frayed yellow hair off?" He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.

"We're getting picked up tonight – the Spycar's in the headquarters for upgrades, remember?" She affectionately picked at his hair while explaining. " And we'll need something that flies for this sitch. Unless you'd rather swim across the Atlantic."

"Hmm, lemme think about that – NO." They both laughed in the cold summer night.

As Kim's chuckles started to subside, Ron glanced at her sideways. "You know I really don't mind carrying your shopping bags, KP."

She grinned without looking at him. "I know, Ron. But seriously – go spend some time with your sister and your parents. I know you miss Hana, and I KNOW she misses you too."

"Who? My crazy level-twenty-ninja-samurai-barbarian-paladin sister?"

She gave him an amused look. "Oh, you're just jealous at how quickly she became Master Sensei's star pupil."

"KP, she graduated Yamanouchi at the prime old age of FOUR. She was a master ninja-samurai at FIVE. She isn't normal."

"I thought you liked that about her." She chuckled as she took his arm and stood close to him.

"Well, shyeah, but she's still crazy. Besides, how many Japanese ninja-samurai do YOU know are going to have a Bat Mitzvah? I mean, what do I get her then, a set of eighteen katanas? Oy VEY."

Kim's chuckles burst into a full fledged laugh again, as she leaned her head on Ron's shoulder. "You're so weird. But I like you anyway." She blinked once when Ron stayed quiet, and raised her head. "Ron? Did I say something wrong?"

There was a flurry of blonde as he shook his head. "Nah. You just reminded me – you said something like that the very first time we met."

"Mmm-hmm." She rested her head on his shoulder again. "I did, you're right."

There was a few more seconds of comfortable silence again before Ron spoke. "Hey. KP?"

Her answer was slightly muffled. "What's the sitch, Ron?"

"You're so perfect. But I love you anyway."

She closed her eyes, and snuggled in closer to him. "I love you too, Ron."


	5. Prelude 4: Icarus Falling

Prelude 4: Icarus Falling

"It's no one we know," the SEAL copter pilot shouted over the din of the Atlantic storm and the rotor blades. "MO, costume, none of it raised any red flags with your intel boys at Global Justice. My bet is, it's some new guy trying to make an impression."

Kim grinned at him from the back seat, pulling on a GJ jacket. "You know how it is with the new guy, always trying to look good."

"Well, he's off to a dumb start, thank god – no casualties yet, just a lot of damaged equipment and fires. The roughneckers managed to bail out before he took any hostages, so now he's asking for, ahem, one beelleeon dollars for the rig."

Ron blinked at him, halfway through through re-cinching his titanium, no-drop belt. "Did he actually say that?"

"Well, no, but you know how these supervillain types work."

"Only too well," Kim rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, what we need you kids to do is take him down before he wrecks any more of this rig. If he damages the struts, we could be looking at another Deepwater Horizon-type spill, and the East Coast beaches are bad enough."

"We're on this sitch," Kim grinned back at the pilot. "Get us in close enough and we'll take care of it."

"Speak for yourself," her partner grumbled loudly enough to be heard over the intercom. "Have you seen the SIZE of the waves down there? I'm getting seasick just from looking at them… urp!" He yanked up a hand to his mouth, looking faintly green.

"Then don't look at the water," Kim advised.

"KP… we're in the Atlantic. IT'S ALL WATER!"

"Look on the bright side – at least we won't break anything if we mess up our parachute landing," she replied cheerfully.

Ron looked at her in slightly nauseated horror.

* * *

The white haired man stepped into a large, multilevel room; the walls, ceiling, and even the floor was liberally covered in flat screens. The largest of all stood on the wall in front of him, a massive single display currently split up into multiple windows, all focused on the distant oil rig. To his side was a battery of supercomputers, their monitors all linked to reconsats, military-band radios, and even internet service providers. Over a dozen technicians were at work, frantically ensuring that all the machines were working perfectly.

Above the quiet mayhem, the man spoke in a voice of command, "Status."

One of the technicians raised his head from his monitor and scurried over to him. "All assets are in place, sir, and everything is working out as planned," the white coated flunky groveled. "Requiem Lacrimosa is on schedule and Crimson-One is on site and ready to execute."

"Of course he is," the older man said coldly. "What about us? I want our communication controls to be perfect for this phase."

"Delphi Station is at 100 percent. Every single eye in the sky with visual on the target is either ours or has been hacked into. All radio bands within the area have been compromised, and we have full access to direct newsfeeds from the media present."

"Fine. Carry on," he said, dismissing the technician, before walking over to the railing and placing his palms on the cold steel. His eyes searched across the room, unblinking, seeking any mistake. His gaze remained glued to the central screen, as though his stare could influence the events unfolding so far away.

"So much time," he whispered to himself in Latin. "So many years, waiting. Watching. And waiting still. Shall fortune favor the fool or the fearless tonight? Shall his ascension - _ours -_ be realized, or will his loss be a tragic footnote?" His lips tightened, his steel gray eyes narrowed. "He is unbound chaos, far from the ideal, yet in all this time, he is the only suitable key. Of such things are plans laid awry, and yet. And _yet_. He may be the only one among us - so few are we - that can assail the breach. He may be my only hope." He smiled callously. "Do not disappoint me, _Hanuman_."

* * *

"What's the - urk! - what's the plan, KP?" Ron yelled over the rain and the explosions, trying to disentangle himself from his parachute lines.

"He's up there somewhere in the control tower," the superspy replied, shrugging off her pack smoothly and pointing up at a tall metal structure engulfed in flames. "The negotiators are still trying to figure out if they can talk him out of it – crazy in spandex and tights, so not the reasonable type, right?" She grinned. "Anyway, when we get the go ahead, you check the rig for anyone injured or left behind. I'll take a look at the vulnerable points, see if he left any bombs there, or if he's gonna go old school medieval with a ray gun."

"Hey, I know how to defuse bombs now too, remember? I finally passed the spy course," her partner protested.

She chuckled and touched his cheek. "I know, sweetie, but you don't _like_ bombs."

"I'm allergic to explosions, what can I say?"

She laughed again before zipping up her jacket. "I love having you as my partner, Ron, I so do."

"Hmm. Do you?" he asked, tilting his head and giving her a goofy smile.

"Yes, already! Stop fishing for compliments." She swatted him lightly on the shoulder.

"Just… I dunno." He looked back up at the control tower. "Meh, nothing." Ron went quiet.

"I know that 'meh'. Out with it, Stopabble." She turned to look at him, smiling at his mannerism, before she noticed the thoughful look on his face. The smile faded. "Ron? Something wrong, sweetie?"

"I was…" he hesitated, voice quavering. "I was… just wondering, I guess."

Worried, Kim gently touched his hand. "Ronald? What is it?"

Ron closed his eyes for a second, before opening them again and turning to face his girlfriend. "I was wondering… would you like to be my partner… for, well. Forever?"

She started, and then chuckled. "I'll always be your partner, Ron, you know that. Team Possible always, remember?"

"Always and forever? You promise?" His voice was cracking slightly now.

"Ron? Now you're worrying me for real. What are you –" She stopped in midsentence.

In his upraised, shaking hand, was a simple diamond ring.

Kimberly Ann Possible blinked once, before taking a deep breath. "Ron? Is… is that?"

"Mmm-hmm." Ronald Dean Stoppable laughed a little shakily. "I know this isn't the most romantic place to do ask it, but, well, Monique was bugging me to pop the question tonight, before I started putting it off." He took a deep, nervous breath. "I know it's only been four years since we started dating. And I know it's a bad time to ask and all that – but what can I do, right? Type B personality, and stuff." His voice began quivering, before he managed to get himself under control. "I'm clumsy and I'm really geeky, and I don't get this romance stuff, like, at ALL. Heck, there's a lot I don't get – why you've been my best friend since pre-K, why you've kept me as your partner, why you've let a guy as uncool as me be boyfriend to a girl as awesome as you. I don't get it, none of it… _but I don't care_. I don't care what other people say, I don't care how weird it looks. I love you, Kimberly Ann Possible, I love you _so much_, and I'm your partner forever, if you'll have me."

She went quiet for a few seconds, emerald eyes quietly fixed on him, before smiling softly. "You're right. You really don't know romance at all, Ron – you're proposing to me right before a mission, in the middle of a lousy, cold Atlantic storm. On top of a half-destroyed oil rig, that's ON FIRE, I might add." She chuckled again, raising one hand to wipe her eyes. "You're so weird, offbeat, so indescribably funny and great to be around, you know that? Only you'd think of proposing at a time like because you were afraid you'd end up procrastinating." Her tears were flowing freely now, but she was laughing. "Yes. God, YES!"

Ron took her left hand in his own, and slowly, carefully put on the engagement ring, his hands still shaking. She smiled at him, raising it to watch the fires reflected in its facets, before throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him softly.

* * *

The white haired man watched, coldly voyeuristic, as the pair embraced atop the oil platform. "Congratulations, Hanuman," he quietly said. "Welcome to the rest of your life." He straightened, and barked at his underlings, "We are committed – where is Crimson-One?"

"Crimson-One is on standby! All assets are ready!" one of them yelled back.

He closed his eyes, reflecting for a single second on all the decisions, the carefully built plans that had taken him down this path.

"Sir? SEAL team is relaying failure of negotiations, the subjects are about to move!"

Time distilled behind his eyelids, as he quietly contemplated how much was involved in destroying a single man.

"Global Justice has acknowledged, they're about to give the go ahead!"

For the tiniest fraction of a second, he felt pity for his unknowing pawn, and the barest beginning of hesitation.

"Sir? We need to know your order! Sir!"

The older man opened his eyes, resolve steeled into his face as he gave the order that would break Ronald Dean Stoppable.

"Crimson-One, execute, _execute, EXECUTE! ICARUS FALLING!_"


	6. Prelude 5: Steel Circle Closing

Prelude 5: Steel Circle Closing

The explosions began to shatter the night air around them, at the same time their radios simultaneously went wild with noise. Kim quickly disentangled herself from Ron with a cross look, growling, "Oh, he is SO gonna get his." She turned to her partner. "Plan B, Ron. I'm gonna rush the tower before he brings the whole place down. Back me up as soon as you're sure the place is clear." She planted a quick kiss on his forehead. "Game face, sweetie, we got bad guys to own."

He grinned back at her, his mood hardly affected by the interruption. "Got it, KP. Middleton's MVP running back is on the job!" His fingers were still twined with hers, rings touching, as he turned to go. "Kick his rear out of his gear, Kim!"

* * *

"Subjects have split up, Briseis is approaching Crimson-One," a technician manning one of the screens reported.

"Not exactly according to plan, but we'll make do. This should make Phase Two easier."

A sinuous voice intruded on the communications link. "Are you doubting my abilities, my dear commander?"

"Do not underestimate her, Crimson-One," the older man warned. "When truly pushed to their limits, either of them can get lucky and take you down. Combined, your success rate drops dramatically. Your advantages lie in the fact that you've studied her extensively, and that you are an unknown to her. This will be no simple assassination – this will be a _fight_, and one we cannot afford to lose."

"You forget another important advantage I possess, dear leader."

"I'm sure you'll enlighten me."

"Unlike all of her previous enemies," the voice purred, "I don't intend to take her alive."

* * *

Kim hung off the edge of the catwalk, gloved hands holding onto steel railing as she poked her head up to look at the terrorist. Tight black mask with a skull on the forehead, black cape with a skull on the back, black studded leather jumpsuit (_Why is it all the really incompetent bad guys dress up like they've got some weird fetish,_she wondered) with more skulls, and a big honking death ray strapped to one hand. Of course.

The baddie had his back turned to her, and his other hand had no bomb switch that she could see. With that in mind, she had a number of options open to her - swing up into a cartwheel kick? Pull herself up, jump off the railing, and smack him with an overhand right? Or sneak onto the platform, grab him from behind with a jiujitsu throw and end with an armlock? So many choices, so many ways to kick butt.

She decided to go for the third option, just in case he did have a trigger for the bomb somewhere else on his person. Besides, it was probably the least painful one. Kim was in a good mood; after all, she just gotten engaged. Not that the bad guy would _care_, of course, but it was the thought that counted.

She was within a couple of yards behind the target when she felt something was wrong. Anyone crazy enough to be caught in public with a getup like _that_ would either be a) cackling madly, b) boasting maniacally to a minion, or c) or launching in some rambling monologue about how he was going to have revenge, yadda yadda and all that. Instead, the baddie was standing there, stock still.

Kim closed the last few feet in a leap, grabbing at the villain's gun arm and yanking it behind him. "Game's over, whoever you are. Why don't you be a nice supervillain and just give up now? I'm sure those nice people in the SWAT copters would like it if you –"

The answering reply was the last thing she expected. "Please," a sobbing, scared male voice pleaded, "please get me out of this suit!"

The heroine blinked. "Uh… okay?"

"I find it endlessly fascinating, what a human being will do when helplessly caught in events beyond his control." Kim whirled around, letting go of the supposed villain and crouching into a combat stance. The voice came from a dark shape, casually leaning against one of the support girders, the silhouette red from the roaring flames. "Panicked fear is, of course, the most typical reaction. Most would probably find it tedious over time, but somehow I _never_ tire of it." The figure moved off of the girder, turning to walk towards her in an negligent swagger. "That man, for example," he continued, in a slightly accented, sensuously feral voice. "The last thing he remembered was eating a hasty dinner on his break. When he woke up, he'd been forced into a battlesuit and framed for any number of terrorist acts." Although the rest of him was still shadowed, she could easily see the gleam of a wicked smile. "I suppose I should thank your friend, that idiot Dementor. He never did grasp the full potential of the battlesuit hijack system he designed – unmanned units, for example, that could be controlled remotely."

"PLEASE LET ME GO!" the victim in the suit screamed.

"Hush," the other man replied, in a sibilant whisper. "It's time to sleep now, dear." The figure snapped his fingers, and before Kim could respond, the suit's free hand rose up, grabbed the hostage by his chin, and cleanly snapped his own neck. Her hands clapped over her mouth in shock, as the innocent pawn's head lolled at a horrible angle, the suit keeping his corpse upright.

She spun around to face the murderer, keenly aware that this enemy was like no one she'd faced before. In all her years as a crimefighter, she'd never faced anyone capable of snuffing out a human life which such wanton carelessness. "What do you want?" the redhead demanded, as she dropped into a crouch and prepared to fight for her life.

Again she saw that death's head grin. "I thought you'd never ask," he purred, as his rapier slid out from its scabbard with a steely hiss. "All I want," he rasped with his mad leer growing wider, "is to watch you _BURN._"

* * *

"Crimson-One is in contact. He's begun close quarters engagement."

"Engage ECM," the white haired man barked. "Activate our dormant worms within the networks. Disrupt all live feeds from the site. Internet, radio, video, take them all down."

"Done, sir," one of the technicians said after a second, as news stations around the world began dropping off the air. "All that's left are any on-site recording systems."

"Signal our air asset. Echo-Mike-Papa," the leader ordered. "_Blind them_."

Over a hundred miles away, a lone, Stealth-modified JSF-35 Lightning II broke from its holding pattern along the eastern seaboard and streaked deeper into the wind-churned Atlantic. "This is FERRET-1, over," the pilot called over the radio. "My weapon is tracking, requesting confirmation for Wild Weasel strike."

"Weapons free, FERRET-1, strike mission is go."

The pilot depressed a button on his side-stick, launching a single missile from beneath one of the aircraft's wings. "Fox-One, EMP munition _away_!"

* * *

Ron stumbled back out onto the platform, blackened and coughing. _Nobody else down below, and no bombs either! _For all his bravado at his newfound skills - after all, he'd only _barely_ passed the demolitions course - he wasn't all that keen on disarming time bombs inside a floating environmental hazard. He looked around, eyes tearing from the acrid petroleum smoke, as he yanked his communicator off his cargo khakis to call up Kim. "KP? Uh, KP? I can't see anything 'cause of all this smoke... it buuuurns!" He coughed again, realizing that all he was getting on his radio was static. He immediately tried to get in touch with Wade - still nothing.

"Oh, man. What did she say - control tower, got it!" He turned to sprint up the catwalk steps.

* * *

Kim launched a roundhouse kick at the assassin's weapon wrist, using the momentum to spin herself around and throw a right straight at his face. The flame-haired man deftly backstepped, her fist an inch short of his lunatic smile as he smoothly pulled his rapier back in and swatted her arm away by the hilt. She sold it, pretending that the parry knocked her off balance, before dropping to a knee and spinning her leg towards his feet.

The cheshire grin never leaving his face, he deftly tossed his weapon to his other hand and dropped to his side, both feet kicking up into the air right over Kim's legsweep. He landed on his free hand, his lower body still in midair, as he slashed downward at Kim.

The heroine dropped prone onto her back, trapping the blade in both palms in a butterfly catch and simultaneously lashing out with both feet at the assassin's midsection. He released the rapier, dodging her kick by spinning around in a complete circle on his free hand, before grabbing the handle as he spun back into place and sliding it back out between her palms. Both combatants nimbly landed back on their feet, Kim doing a kip-up into a combat stance, while her opponent launched himself off of his handstand on both feet.

The assassin pulled himself up, drooping over slightly, body shaking as he began to laugh insanely. "You," he growled, looking up at her from between the strands of his long, blood red hair. "You ARE everything they promised. Kimberly Ann Possible - the greatest heroine in the world. The right hand of justice. _The Red Angel._ Supervillains, terrorists, aliens - none of them could stand before you." His head tilted sharply to the side, eyes wide and teeth gleaming. "You can truly do anything, can you not, my dear?"

She gave him a grim grin in reply. "That's what it says on my site, Mister. And 'doing anything' is gonna include kicking your butt and putting your certifiable sweet self behind bars." Despite her nonchalant voice, Kim was trying to buy time. In the bare seconds they'd spent in close combat, she'd already realized that he was the most dangerous opponent she'd ever faced in hand-to-hand. His speed, instincts, and raw strength were better than Shego's, Yori's, Fiske's or even Sensei. She might have had a chance if she'd deployed with her battlesuit, but communications were down, and she wasn't sure how quickly GJ would be able to get the suit to her, anyway. She needed an ace in the hole to beat this guy.

That's what her martial artist, monkey-powered boyfriend was for.

Another series of explosions rocked the entire oil rig, as heroine and villain stood facing each other on the fire-swept platform. As the booming receded, the man ran his fingers back through his scalp and stood up straight. His eyes burning with bloodthirsty madness, his smile suddenly disappeared. "Oh. I see." His head tilted the other way. "You're waiting for your partner, aren't you?"

_Ron, sweetie, where ARE you? _"There's plenty of beatdown to go around. I hope you don't mind if I share," she quipped.

"You know," he continued, "I was told that the two of you were unbeatable." He turned to the side and slowly shuffled around her, his arm hanging limply and the rapier's tip dragging on the perforated steel. "I would dearly love to prove my naysayers wrong, but alas - I have a job to do, my dear. I do hope _you_ don't mind."

Kim warily followed his movements, feet making the barest adjustments to keep her facing the lunatic as he circled around her. A bright white nova burst in the distance, followed by a sphere of blue sparks. She saw her communicator go berserk, lights flashing randomly, before being completely shut down.

"Ah. There it is," the man said to no one in particular, one eyebrow raised at the light show. "It is time, then." He suddenly turned to face her. "Show me everything you have, Red Angel. Show me the power that made Kim Possible _legend_. Show me the power that has saved the world time and again, and yet _again still_." He raised his empty hand to his face, as he stared at her blankly from between splayed fingers. "Show me the last, brilliant fire in your soul. _Show it to ME! IT IS TIME!_" He moved his thumb to his mouth, eyes bloodshot and teeth bared in a predator's greeting. "It is time for you to _burn!_" He bit deep into the pad of his thumb, the blood trickling down his hand and his chin.

"Escalating: Skirmish Protocol."

He raised his arm and then slammed down his bloody thumb onto floor, rapidly inscribing a design. Every one of her instincts yelling at her to interrupt him, Kim broke into a run, leaping into the air to hit him with an axe kick. From where she was, she could see the painted blood catch fire, turning the diagram into a burning sigil of pure malice and nihilism.

"_Skirmish Protocol Stage One: __Hellsworn _Rapture."


	7. Prelude Final: Red Angel's Requiem

Prelude Final: Red Angel's Requiem

* * *

Crimson flames erupted around the assassin, erupting into a circular blast wave that caught Kim in mid-air, knocking her backward. She flipped over, managing to land on both feet as she clawed at the steel flooring with one hand to halt her momentum. She skidded back several yards before stopping, slightly winded but otherwise unharmed.

"Ok. Flashy, I'll give you that," she told the assassin, throwing back her hair with one hand as she straightened up. "Now it's my turn to-"

She suddenly saw the villain's bared teeth, laughing grotesquely right in front of her. Pure instinct made her duck down as the rapier swept the air above her head, its tip singing a banshee's dirge above the destruction around them. She heard a tortured groan behind her, and without looking, leaped to the side before the severed half of a reinforced steel girder fell on her. She landed in a roll, backflipping into a standing position, as she watched her enemy jump twenty feet into the air from behind the fallen support. Kim ran flat out forward, jumping onto the girder, then kicking off and jumping even higher into the air, twisting her entire body into a full power circle kick.

"Skirmish Protocol Stage Two: Hellsworn Dirge."

The foot slammed down, capable of breaking through concrete – and hitting only air. She suddenly felt a hand grab her ankle and twirl her around once, before letting go and launching her all the way to another support beam. The breath blew out of her lungs as she crashed into the steel, barely managing to avoid breaking anything. The red haired man reappeared above her before she started falling, almost too fast to see, his free hand rearing back and then lashing downward in a brutal left hook. "Attack Protocol: Ripple Fire."

Kim brought up both arms to block, but the hit slammed her straight down, numbing her forearms from the sheer impact. As her body careened toward the floor, she barely glimpsed him diving down past her, a streak of blood red and mad laughter. She smashed into the floor, bouncing up a foot from the power of the strike, coughing up blood in an eternal second before she felt the assassin's steel toed boot hit her ribs. Again she flew across the steel floor, her opponent soccer kicking her body clear away. The redhead bounced a few times, before rolling into a limp heap.

The madman laughed, arrogantly sauntering over to the heroine's fallen form. "Over? So soon? Have you burned out already, Red Angel?" He leaned down and grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking the unconscious girl off the floor at arm's length from him. "It's a pity we'll have to part so soon, my dear." He tapped her unresisting cheek with his rapier. "Perhaps your boyfriend will provide me with more amusement when I break every single bone in his-"

Kim's eyes snapped open. Both hands grabbed the assassin's wrist as she pulled herself up, hitting him in the chin with both knees.

_"DON'T-"_

She dragged his arm down with her as she dropped to the floor, bringing his wrist to her knee and slamming it down with all her might.

_"-YOU DARE-"_

The redhead let go of the broken wrist, planting herself firmly on both feet in a wide legged stance as her enemy staggered back. Her right fist snaked forward in a twisting _seiken_ karate punch, hitting his midsection squarely on the solar plexus.

_"-TOUCH-"_

The villain crumpled forward, bent over towards her as she dropped to one knee and placed both palms on the floor, gathering power into her feet and lower legs. As he began to topple forward, she suddenly released it like an uncoiled spring, launching into a bicycle kick aimed at his chin. His head snapping back up as she rose into the air, Kim flipped over at the apex of the kick, and brought both hands together above her head. She attacked with a double axe handle strike on the back of his head as she fell back down, smashing his face into the ground.

_"-HIM!"_

She hopped back as she landed, still crouched in fighting posture, panting heavily and bleeding from the side of her mouth. "You so did NOT threaten my boyfriend! And unless you want another world class can of industrial buttkick opened, you'll stay-"

"Actually, my dear," the supine form interrupted her, "I DID threaten him." Disbelievingly, Kim watched him drag himself back upright, the bloodied mad smile still on his face even as his broken left wrist dangled uselessly from his arm. "And you know what else? I think I shall try another helping of that 'can' you so kindly offered." He raised the broken appendage to his face, eyeing it with disdain, before spitting blood onto his wrist. His right hand rose up and with his index finger began to draw on the fluid.

"Skirmish Protocol Stage Three: Hellsworn Coronach."

Battered and exhausted, Kim could only watch as the bone beneath the skin on his wrist visibly reshaped itself. Within seconds he raised his left hand once more, flexing it contemplatively, before he leaned down to pick up his fallen rapier. "I must thank you, my dearest Red Angel," he applauded her, sardonically clapping his hands as he began to circle around her once more. "You've reminded me of pain, taken me to the threshold of death and defeat." He laughed hollowly. "It's been so, _so_ very long since I've faced someone capable of what you've done. And amongst all those I've killed, only _you_, my dearest, _dearest_ Red Angel, have made my blood race like this." His face turned grotesquely tender at that point. "For that, you deserve to know – I don't intend to kill your beloved. After your passing, he shall achieve his full potential, remade – _by us, and by your death_ – into something... _divine._" He sighed softly. "It is almost a pity you shan't see what your beloved will become."

He suddenly smiled again. "But oh, he _will_ see how _you die._"

He raised his left arm up, and snapped his fingers, the scattered droplets of blood on the steel suddenly flaring into dark red flames, reshaping themselves into more runic designs.

"Skirmish Protocol Stage Four: Hellsworn Elegy."

The designs coalesced into a multitude of ethereal spheres that began to float up and spin around the assassin. The red haired man closed his eyes, and began to gesture with his arms, conducting a terrible orchestra to a funeral march that only he could hear. Kim began to run, as the assassin suddenly flung out an arm at her. With that, one of the spheres stopped its orbit and streaked towards her. It exploded right behind her, cratering the steel structure and knocking her off her feet. The girl landed, catlike, and continued to run, as the man started to launch the spheres at her one by one.

* * *

Ron stumbled up the stairs, hearing the bursts and explosions from the control tower. As the fight came into view, he saw his fiancée stumble away from yet another explosion, bruised and singed all over. "Kim!" he yelled over the din. "I'm here, I got your back-"

The assassin turned to him, his conducting interrupted. "Ah," he observed clinically, "the guest of honor arrives." He flung out an outstretched hand, and the spheres stopped their dance. "Attack Protocol: Victor Target."

Every one of the energy spheres rocketed towards the blonde sidekick, Ron skidding to a stop, running to the side and nimbly dodging the sequential blasts erupting behind him.

Kim wearily stood up, holding a bleeding arm to her side. "Ron! Get out of here! Get backup - GJ, Shego, _anyone!_"

"Are you kidding, KP?" Ron yelled back as he hopped over another blast. "I can't even get the Bueno Nacho takeout guy, much less Global Justice - I told you we shouldn't have signed up with AT&T!"

"I'm _serious_, Ron!" she screamed back at him. "You can't take him! _We _can't take him! _Get away from him!"_

"We're Team Possible, KP - if we can't beat him... then we _BOTH RUN!_" The boy abruptly changed direction and rushed directly for his lady, a blue glow enveloping him as the ancient power rushed through his veins. As Ron Stoppable, he was a fairly decent sidekick - frequently clumsy, true, but more often than not he stumbled his way to victory.

As the receptacle of the Mystical Monkey Power, as triggered by danger to someone he loved, he was a juggernaut.

He reached out his hand to grab Kim, intending to yank her with him and jump off this crazy train. If his lady wanted backup, he'd frigging GET backup - Shego and all her brothers, Team Impossible, the entire Yamanouchi school and every single taser rifle toting GJ sniper he could lay his hands on. Then he'd see about finding this whackjob and getting some payback-

The assassin suddenly appeared in front of him, dropping his rapier and reaching out with both hands, crackling flames forming between them.

_"Skirmish Protocol, Stage FIVE-"_

_"_It's BONUS stage time, you renaissance fair reject!" Ron roared out, focusing his power into his right fist and arcing it backward as he continued his head-on charge.

The assassin smiled.

**_"HELLSWORN THRENODY!"_**

A wall of searing hell erupted from the assassin's hands, rising all the way to the top of the structure and then crashing upon Ron like a burning wave. The blonde sidekick ignored the assault, the blue energy surrounding him protecting him from its effects. He focused the Mystical Monkey Power into his fist, an azure blaze leading the way as he cleaved a path through the crimson energy, aiming directly at the poor fool who had DARED hurt his KP.

The crack of lightning echoed like a bomb burst as the red haired man met the attack, Ron's fist slamming into the assassin's waiting right hand. A shockwave burst from the impact, causing the remaining steel supports around them to buckle from the pressure and silencing both sapphire and ruby flames.

"Tell me, Ron Stoppable," his opponent asked conversationally, as they locked in combat, "have you ever had a bad day?"

Ron screamed as he felt his fingers crack, the villain laughing madly in his face. The man's hands were glowing with concentrated vermilion fire, overwhelming the blue lightning sheathing the blonde. Stoppable felt even more of the mystic energy flood into his body, and he willed it to his right leg, lashing out with a desperate kick to his enemy's head. The foot flew like a unerring blue meteor, the wind pressure from the empowered attack gouging an inch deep furrow into a steel girder behind the assassin. The madman's eyes merely widened in glee, baring more teeth as his left hand casually swatted the kick away, and then rose up and closed.

Ron nearly blacked out as the burning fist hammered into his leg, shattering the azure energy sheath, as well as his tibia.

Kim's partner collapsed to his remaining good knee as the assassin continued to crush his fist with his right hand, and began to relentlessly pummel his face with the other. "NOT YET!" the lunatic roared with each thudding hit. "TOO WEAK! YOU ARE STILL TOO _WEAK!_"

"STOP IT!" Kim screamed at him, sobbing as she weakly tried to stand. _"STOP IT!"_

The red haired man abruptly stayed his hand, slowly turning his head to look at her. "Is that your wish, dearest Red Angel? Would you rather I face you, instead?"

The young woman staggered to her feet, nearly losing her footing before she raised her hands in a combat stance, glaring at him from beneath sweat matted hair. "You want some?" Her right hand tauntingly beckoned him. "You're gonna get _some_."

The assassin smiled and let go of Ron's useless crushed fist, letting him collapse to the floor, face a mask of blood. He leaned down to the young man, lifting his chin with one finger. "You must open your eyes," he whispered, his voice eerily gentle. "You _must _see this. See this, and remember it for the rest of your life." He lowered his lips to his ear, continuing to speak softly. "Watch her, Ronald Stoppable. _Remember her_. Remember how she fell, not quietly, but burning out the last seconds of her life. Burning like an angel fallen from the celestial heavens." He paused as the sidekick forced his eyelids open from beneath a haze of blood, before going on with an overtone of contemptuous pity. "The world will never see her like again, child. Never, ever, again." His next words rasped cruelly from his throat. "Now watch the Red Angel _fall_."

Kim Possible staggered forward, and then broke into a dead run.

_"KP!" _Ron cried out. _"NO!"_

She leaped the last few feet, right arm reared backward for a last, desperate attack. The assassin closed his eyes, and then swiftly turned, fists roaring with unchecked flame. He clinically watched her dive at him, gauging her descent.

The sound of bones cracking rang loud in the air, as the madman ducked neatly beneath her fist and struck her full on in midair. Her eyes widened as she coughed a gout of blood, barely landing on her shaky feet as she clutched her shattered ribs. The assassin paused, both arms hanging by his sides, before he crouched over slightly, pulling back his right arm as the unholy roar of black and red flames swirled into his knuckle.

"Attack Protocol, Target Locked -"

_"KIM!"_ her fiancé screamed.

"- Weapons _FREE_."

The entire structure rocked, the impact of the killer's fist booming over the entire area, as the entirety of his focused power exploded, point blank, against Kimberly Ann Possible's chest. The burst illuminated the abyssal sea all around them, the entire top section of the oil rig blasting up and away from the force of the detonation wave. She blew backward, skidding on her feet, almost reaching the edge of the platform before her limp form stopped, and fell over onto the unyielding metal.

The tortured steel beneath them groaned, the rig's stability compromised as one of the struts gave way, causing the entire platform to incline. The red haired assassin watched impassively as Kim began to slide over into the sea.

Summoning every last ounce of power in his body, Ron jerked himself upright and dashed past the killer, leaping forward and barely managing to grab his fiancee's sleeve with his good hand as she fell over the edge. Ignoring his body's screams of pain, he slammed down the broken fingers of his mangled left hand into the perforated steel. "KP! I've got you! _Don't let go, PLEASE!"_

Another strut gave way beneath them, and Kim Possible dangled further down, hanging above the storm-tossed waters. Her eyes blearily opened, and she looked up into the face of her beloved, a small, peaceful smile on her lips.

"You'll be okay, Kim, I got you, I _got_ you, _please_, don't let go," Ron pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

"Ron," Kimberly Ann Possible whispered up at him as another explosion ripped through the facility, "I love you."

The sleeve ripped.

All Ronald Dean Possible could do was watch his partner, his best friend, his girlfriend, _his fiancée_... _his life_… fall away into oblivion.

_I'm talking about graduation, and _us_, and what comes after. This whole thing has shown me that I- I can't live without you._

_Ron, please, get a grip. Nothing is _ever_ gonna come between us._

He screamed her name out into the uncaring night sky, unable to comprehend anything except her loss.

The assassin walked over to the young man's broken, sobbing form, leaning down to softly whisper into his ear.

_"All it takes is one bad day."_

The killer stood up, observing the SWAT team helicopters approaching the area, before walking away from Ron Stoppable.

"Crimson-One is extracting. Requiem Lacrimosa is complete.

Begin Phase Three."

* * *

Stoppable stumbled into his family's house, ignoring his parents' worried questions as he climbed up the stairs directly to his room. He entered and locked the door behind him without turning on the light, unwilling to face the rest of his life. His destroyed left hand swathed in makeshift bandages, his other hand swept over his cabinet of comic books, looking for a specific one.

He'd gotten it a couple of years ago in college. It was Kim's birthday present to him, in fact, a set of first editions from one of his favorite story arcs. His fingers found the right one and pulled it out, as he sat down on his bed and opened it. Ron mechanically flipped through the pages until he got to the right one; he could barely read it by the dim moonlight, but he remembered the lines only too well.

_"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once. Am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day, and everything changed."_

His tears fell on the page, as his body was wracked by sobs again, the direction of his entire life irrevocably changed.

All it took was one bad day.

* * *

End Prelude.

Requiem On Paper Wings continues in Interlude: Red Angel's Remembrance


	8. Interlude: Red Angel's Remembrance

Interlude: Red Angel's Remembrance

* * *

_Good Morning America,_ ABC News

"… _refuse to believe the tragic news, it is confirmed that Kimberly Possible was not among the evacuated survivors of the oil rig tragedy. At the same time, there is _as yet _no concrete evidence that that Ms. Possible did not escape the – hold on… excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. We're getting a report from one of our affiliates in New York… ok, we're going live _now_ to Liberty State Park, where there have been new developments."_

_[Camera shifts to Liberty Walkway, where a large number of people have gathered close to the water's edge. A police line separates the rubberneckers from the cluster of cops, National Guard, and EMT's. The drone of Coast Guard helicopters can be heard over the noise of the crowd, and before long a Coast Guard patrol boat begins to approach.]_

"_What do you think it is, George?"_

"_Can't say as yet, Robin. We don't even know exactly what transpired last night. Remember that all we have are eyewitness accounts of what happened; all newfeeds and recording devices were corrupted during the tragedy. Security experts all over the world have stated that, in all likelihood, it was a systematic and planned disruption by whoever committed this act."_

"_That's true – all we have right now are eyewitness accounts. And the only one who was actually there, Mr. Ronald Stoppable, was just admitted into Middleton General for shock and injuries sustained in the incident. It may take a while for anyone to know what _really_ happened."_

_[The patrol boat docks by the side of the Liberty Walkway. Over the heads in the crowd can be seen Coast Guardsmen moving out of the vessel, their movements slow and deliberate. A hush falls over the crowd, and the camera zooms in; some of the men can be seen taking off their hats as the crowd gradually gives way.]_

"_We're seeing activity on the waterside. Robin, does our affiliate know what's going on down there?"_

"_I'm not sure, this could be – oh. Oh, my God, George. Oh, god."_

_[As though a ripple passes through the crowd, all the people, civilians, soldiers, and police alike begin to lower their head and remove their headgear. The camera cuts to a shot of an EMT, medical equipment clenched in her shaking hands, the young woman trembling in impotent grief. Microphone picks up the sound of sobbing from somewhere within the crowd. Camera pans back to the somber group of Guardsmen, who can now be seen reverently carrying a black body bag between them, an American flag draped respectfully over it. Camera slowly zooms in to a stray lock of red hair peeking out from underneath the flag and lingers on the shot._

_Camera zooms back out to the studio, both hosts completely silent as they watch the affirmation of their fears, before the man speaks.]_

_"This will change everything."_

* * *

_Dateline NBC, _NBC

_"… originally planned as a small, private affair. However, in deference to the many people who have admired and loved her around the world, the Possible family agreed to a state funeral, befitting Ms. Kimberly Possible's status as heroine and symbol. Although only family and friends will be present, the family has graciously allowed the media to cover the event, allowing the millions of mourners around the world to share in their grief. Our thoughts, and our prayers, go out to them."_

* * *

_BBC World News, _BBC One

_ "… continuing live coverage of Miss Kimberly Possible's funeral. Speaking now is Mister Doctor James Timothy Possible…"_

_ "Many knew her as a heroine. As the girl who could do anything – she liked to say that herself. More recently, as the Red Angel, the girl who's saved the world more times that I can count – and I can count quite a bit. I _am_ a rocket scientist, after all." _He looked up from the podium and flashed a small, forced smile. _"But our family lost more than a heroine, than an angel. To me and my wife, she was a daughter. To her brothers, she was their big sister. To her friends, and the people who loved her… well, they can tell you better than I can. But to me, personally, she was – she _is_. She always _will_ be – forever - my little Kimmie-Cub."_

_ "… budding fashion designer, close friend and former classmate Monique…"_

_ "There's a lot of words people are gonna use about my friend. Superhero, superspy, super-plus-anything, pretty much. But if I had just one word to describe Kim? Just one? It would be _fierce_. That's how my girlfriend rolled. It was how she lived, how she loved. It was the way she did _everything_; didn't matter if she was cheering her heart out for the Mad Dogs, doing a school project, or kicking bad guy butt. She was fierce, was our Kim." _The young girl stopped, and visibly fought for a second before regaining her composure. _"It's how she lived, and for damn sure it's how she went out."_

_ "… past member of Team Go, former mercenary villainess turned security consultant Shego…"_

_ "Sure, Kim and I fought. A LOT. Out of everyone here, nobody's faced her from the other side of the fence as many times as I have – well, except maybe Dr. D there." _She nodded to a blue skinned man sitting in one of the front rows, looking uncomfortable in a black coat with the collar turned up. _"We also worked together a couple times, more after the whole Lorwardian mess. Anyway, the point is, I've known Kim as both her enemy, and her friend. And I'd like to think that wherever she is right now, she's listening to us, maybe laughing at how silly we're all being. And if she is… well, I can't think of any better words to tell her than the ones D came up with." _The green skinned woman looked up into the somber skies. "_You really _were_ all that – you hear me, girl? You really were_._"_

"… _and finally, Ronald Dean Stoppable, her partner and boyfriend, will begin speaking…"_

_ "The truth is that we all lost someone special," _the young man said in a dead monotone, his gloved left hand gripping tightly onto the podium surface. _"The people she's helped, the people who admired her, the people who loved her." _He closed his eyes, ignoring the faint drizzle falling onto his face. _"A lot of us… a lot of us aren't going to be able to let her go easily. I know. I've been her friend since we were kids. She is – I'm sorry, she was my best friend. And I…"_ His voice faltered, as a young Japanese girl by his side reached up to gently touch his hand. _"I love you, KP, and I… I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."_

* * *

_Happening Now, _Fox News

_"… in an unprecedented turn of events, Betty Director, head of Global Justice, has announced her resignation from her post. Sources indicate that internal pressure from the senior officers of Global Justice, as well as from the US government, was instrumental in her decision to step down. Allegations of inadequate leadership were brought to a head by the tragic death of Kimberly Ann Possible, possibly the most well known and well loved of Global Justice's agents, as well as the resignation of Ronald Dean Stoppable, Ms. Possible's partner and fiancé. Mrs. Director read the following statement during the press conference."_

_ 'I, Betty Director, have tendered my resignation effective immediately. Due to the sad events that have recently occurred, the senior leadership of my organization have expressed doubts regarding my methods and abilities. Since this is tantamount to a vote of no confidence, I have decided that it would be in the best interests of Global Justice- in order for it to remain an effective crime fighting entity- for me to step down.' _

_"Succeeding her to the post is Marcus Winters, formerly the chief financial officer of Global Justice. It is rumored that Winters spearheaded the effort to have Mrs. Director replaced. Mr. Winters has a well known reputation of having a hardline stance against crime in general and 'super-criminals' in particular. In the past several years he has called for the use of increasingly lethal methods and weapons against what he calls 'elements that are destructive not merely to society but to civilization itself.' In light of recent events, there are many who agree with his point of view…"_

* * *

_Taking Stock_, Bloomberg Television

_"… ending bullish today with renewed investor confidence, as the chief of Global Justice announced a raft of new measures for counteracting the supervillian threat. Mr. Winters has pushed forward the creation of VTR-T's, or Villainous Threat Response Teams, ending the era of small superagent groups. The new VTR Teams will composed of professional, former special forces soldiers, capable of engaging any supervillain threat. Furthermore, these units will now be able to defend themselves effectively, armed with the new Rules of Engagement that Marcus Winters has signed into law with the United Nation's consent. The updated ROE allows Global Justice agents to preemptively use lethal force, as well as the new weapons commissioned by the peace agency, a definite break from former policy…"_

* * *

_Larry King Live, _CNN

_ "… now, Mr. Winters, this may sound like a pretty rude question to ask, but it's something that's being asked in a lot of homes even as we speak: don't you consider your methods rather, well, extreme?"_

_ "I'm actually rather glad you asked that question, Larry. I have no compunctions about answering this in public, where it should be discussed."_

_"Go on."_

"_Well, as you know, we at Global Justice have a mandate to fight crime, specifically, the ones perpetuated by super powered villains and crazed scientists. Please note, we deal on a daily basis with entities that possess a frightening capacity for destruction. As an example, Mr. King, a few years ago the world was attacked by autonomous combat drones disguised as souvenir toys."_

_ "You're speaking, of course, about the Mini Diablo incident, when Dr. Drakken bought out the Bueno Nacho chain and used it to sell his terrorist weapons."_

_"Precisely, Larry. Billions in property damage and the trauma inflicted on all those innocent children should have been warning enough of the dangers posed by these madmen. The old GJ policy was to simply try to capture them alive and then imprison them. Apart from the danger this misguided policy posed to agents, a simple prison sentence cannot hope to contain these super powered lunatics. Need I remind you of the prison break numbers under Mrs. Director's watch?"_

_"Mr. Drew Lipski, however, was fully pardoned for his actions during the Lorwardian conflict, and is according to all accounts a… well, a mostly reformed man. Many would call him a shining example of former Global Justice policy."_

_"With all due respect to Dr. Lipski – I've heard the man is a leader in reconstructive environmental engineering now – with all due respect to him, he is the exception that proves the rule. Let's face it, most of Ms. Possible's foes were essentially beaten into submission by the greatest agent Global Justice ever had. They quit after the Lorwardian conflict because they realized the only time Dr. Drakken ever succeeded, was when he tried to save the world! Surely, Mr. King, it's unfair to expect ALL of our agents to perform to Ms. Possible's world-beating standards. That is why I've implemented new directives and methods, designed for a more realistic way to deal with these criminals."_

_"But some say these new methods of yours trample all over the rights of-"_

_"_Rights?_ Tell me, Larry, what of the rights of their victims? What of the rights of the people they prey upon, helpless against their might? What about the rights of Kim Possible, a beautiful young woman in her prime, needlessly killed, _murdered_, by yet another deranged maniac, because of the foolish, tenderhearted policies enacted by the old Global Justice? Tell me, Larry, what about _her_?"_

_"Mr. Winters, there are also some who say that you've been using the death of Ms. Possible for your own ends, that you're using her as a rallying point-"_

_ "I will not deny it. Why should I? This was something that was bound to happen under Mrs. Director. And if Ms. Possible's tragedy can be used to improve a flawed but important instrument of justice, wouldn't you think she'd gladly agree to be used in such a way, Larry? _

_ She _is_ a rallying point. While she lived, she was idolized by all who knew her, all the lives she saved, she touched. The worldwide vigils we saw on this very network a few months before, the millions of mourners; in her death, she reminded us of how beautiful, and yet how fleeting life can be. The world owes her more than we can ever repay on the basis of her professional work alone. It would be a disservice to her memory, her family, to us all, but most importantly to _her_, not to learn a lesson from all this._

_ No more Kim Possibles will die under my watch. No more promising young women beloved by the world will be lost to slavering, insane fiends. Global Justice will use every resource at its command to protect the world, no matters what it takes to do so. I swear this upon the memory of Kimberly Ann Possible."_

* * *

Global Justice New York

"… and I'd like to thank you, all of you, for your continuing dedication and support," the white haired man declared in a booming voice, reaching every person in the vast control room. He grinned broadly, looking for all the world like a kindly grandfather doting on his descendants. "Now, I know there have been some rumblings of discontent, and I'd like to address that issue. Some of you think that our agency has become… well, become confused and hasty, in the wake of recent crisis. Let me assure one and all, our commitment to peace, to justice, has NOT changed. Our mission is still the same – to protect against cataclysm. We are the few and the proud, and we stand on the ramparts of civilization. We stand against those who would plunge us into eternal darkness, and I am DAMN proud of every single one of you." He raised his glass of champagne. "To peace, prosperity, _and global justice!_"

The hall erupted into cheers and laughter, as the New Year's party began in earnest. The white haired man strode through the crowd, dispensing small talk and casual jokes as he made his way to the exit. He gave his glass to an usher and nodded pleasantly at the suited bodyguards watching over the function. "Don't work too hard tonight, boys – this is a Global Justice celebration, and last I checked, y'all were still on the payroll, " he cheerfully admonished them.

The men laughed. "Thank you, Mr. Winters!" they chorused, as the head of Global Justice patted them on the shoulder before making his way out of the hall, walking down the empty corridor. The smile on his face gradually fell away, the mask dissolving into a cold, calculating look, as he made his way to his private office. Closing the door behind him, he strode over quickly to his desk, reaching beneath the surface and pressing a hidden button.

"Tactical void transfer," he ordered. "Legend's End. Passcode Epeius."

He blinked once as the teleport completed, sending him into a similar looking room. He immediately strode out, stepping into a cavernous chamber crisscrossed with catwalks and service elevators, the hum of steel blue machines everywhere. Hundreds of scientists and engineers were scattered throughout, tending to their machines like ancient monks restoring priceless manuscripts. Off to one side, mass produced copies of the GJ battlesuit were being customized, the colors changed to red and black and various weapons being added. Off to another side, a hulking behemoth half-concealed by shadows thrashed within its cage, a single sign attached to the bottom: _Lorwardian Xenotype XC-15. Servitor Beast Experiment Ongoing._

A red haired man nimbly jumped off the catwalk from several stories above him, landing right next to Winters with feral, catlike grace. "I would have thought you were going to stay at the party, my dear Winters. You _so_ love your bacchanalia, after all," he purred mockingly, falling into step.

"Sycophants and tools, all of them," the cultured older man snarled as he marched on. "I wouldn't break bread with their weak kind, much less spend an entire evening with them. And these New Year's celebrations are meaningless to us. Are there any developments here at Legend's End?"

"I don't know," the assassin said absently, filing his nails with the edge of his rapiers. "And, really, I don't care. I'm not here to mind your little toys for you, Marcus."

"There are times, Corrigan Lukas, when I wonder why I took up with you."

"Oh, _please_, Marcus. Where else would you find a completely disassociated sociopath whose only desire is to kill?"

"Indeed," the older man grunted noncommittally. "Speaking of which – how's your team coming along?"

Lukas gave an exaggerated sigh. "Adequate, I suppose. Not nearly as bloodthirsty as me, so I'll have to work on that."

"They needn't be as insane as you are, Lukas; they just have to be good at killing."

"Better than the usual lot 'Global Justice' was saddled with," the assassin scoffed. "It's amazing what one can find, sifting through applicants rejected by the old guard due to 'psychological issues.' Hah!" He pirouetted with his rapier. "Insanity's done _wonders_ for me, personally."

"I do wonder if it would have been better to replace you with one of my pet projects. They'd be more stable, certainly."

"None of them could provide you with the scintillating conversation I do, Marcus. Although, I must admit, of all your silly little high school projects," the red haired murderer commented, as they came across a force field protected vat, "this one does intrigue me."

The pair stopped, looking up at the giant glass cylinder, Marcus deactivating the barrier with a word as Lukas went up to it, a hand caressing the cold sides. The assassin looked up into the contents with something akin to reverence. "Really, my dear leader," he asked without turning, "is this… altogether wise?"

"The psychopath questions me about wisdom?"

"This psychopath knows a bad feeling crawling down his spine." He pressed his cheek to glass, eyes closed, murmuring to the inanimate contents like a lover. "There's something beautifully… _depraved_ about this. Like… _violating_… something beautiful and sacred." He purred the words.

Winters looked into the vat impassively, barely seeing anything within the cobalt blue fluid inside. "Trojan Sword Six is a contingency, Lukas. Every single avenue must be examined, every… _possibility_… thought of."

"Maybe." Lukas turned around suddenly, a cheshire grin on his face. "But then again, you're usually right, aren't you?"

Marcus merely smiled, watching as the cloudly swirls within the vat cleared up for a moment, revealing the faintest hint of long, fiery red hair.

"Indeed."

* * *

End Interlude.

Requiem On Paper Wings continues in Red Angel's Reckoning


	9. HR 1: Red Angel's Reckoning

Hanuman Rising Arc - Chapter 1: Red Angel's Reckoning

* * *

Middleton, The Present Day

"_… are sketchy, but the wave of zombies have been confirmed to be on the outskirts of Middleton. While it is impossible to get an accurate assessment, eyewitness accounts estimate them to be in the hundreds. The police force are helpless against this scourge, and we have information that the closest VTR Team will take at least several hours to arrive. By that time, the entire town of Middleton will probably be completely swamped by brain eating hordes of the undead. This is Middleton News, signing off and RUNNING THE HECK OUT OF HERE!"_

* * *

"It's almost showtime, Blacky. You ready for this?"

(_Ready? I was BORN ready, monkey-boy. You're the one who's been out of practice for the last couple of years.)_

"I hate to interrupt you, but technically, you were _forged_, not born. Born implies images I'm sure I shouldn't be thinking."

(_You talk way too much, Bobo. How'd a girl like _her_ put up with you all those years?)_

"I've asked myself that once or twice myself. But thanks for stepping on my ego again – I was starting to get worried when you'd gone a whole five minutes without the soul deadening criticism."

(_Worry about your own butt, "Monkey Master." Pfft. Before I came to you, you couldn't wield enough power to keep your pants on.)_

"You know, there's this girl I knew from around here, Bonnie Rockwaller. You and her would get along _great_."

(_Stop skirting the issue, monkey-boy. You might be keeping up the goofy act, but I can read your thoughts, and listening to your weepy teen angst is making me rust. You'll get killed if you don't focus. I haven't lost a wielder before he completed his mission, and I'm not starting with you, no matter how pathetic you are.)_

"Again, Blacky, hate to interrupt – but aren't you made of obsidian? Stone doesn't rust, dude."

(_If I had a palm, it would be on my face. Or yours. Now shut it – we got us a party to go to. Last chance to back out, Bobo.)_

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I _am _ready. I learned from Kim herself, and those kinds of lessons don't go away. This is as much for her as it is for me, Black Lotus – and you know what I'm capable of when it comes to her."

(_Hmpf. More bratty nonsense – but at least you've got guts. Let's do this.)_

* * *

Wade made it to the improvised barricade around the gym hall, out of breath and panting heavily, before running inside to the makeshift command center he'd set up with the Tweebs. "Did we get everybody in?" he gasped out to the pair.

"Your 'rents are inside, Wade," Jim replied, still busy adjusting the jury-rigged radar.

"And so are ours," Tim continued the sentence, fiddling with knobs on the other side of the machine. "Everyone's inside the gym hall-"

"- so all we have to do is keep 'em safe," the other twin in a green shirt finished, as he pressed a button on the device. The gothic looking pile of metal coughed, sputtered, and growled to life. "Localized radar is up! Hicka-bicka-boo!"

"Hoo-sha!" The twins bumped fists as the chubby genius ran over to the displays, his round face growing grave.

"Guys, according to this, there's WAY too many zombies to stop," Wade spoke, growing pale at the solid mass of dots on the edge of the screen. "Even with the laser pen turrets we set up, the sheer number of them are going to overwhelm our defenses!" He hung his head, slamming a fist on the surface. "If only Kim were here…"

The twins turned to look at each other, then back at Wade, Tim's eyes narrowing. "Well, she isn't," he said. The boy rolled up the sleeves on his red sweater, and placed a hand on Wade's shoulder. "Look, I know it's hard to do the whole heroics thing without Kim, but y'gotta pull it together. She was our sis; we miss her too –"

"- even if she was an annoying cheeriohead sometimes –" Jim softly chuckled.

"- but she ain't here, Wade. WE are," the twin in red concluded. "The three of us aren't heroes – we just make stuff for the real heroes, right? But we can't sit back this time. We've got to step up, and we've got to figure out a way to stop these zombies cold before those VTR jerks come in, guns blazing at anyone moving. You know that better than anyone."

The black boy nodded slowly. He was the one who told the Tweebs about the time he'd been seconded to a VTR assault group; they'd 'solved' a hostage crisis as soon as Wade got them a position fix - by hosing the entire building with enough firepower to level Western Europe. He still had nightmares about that – even though he averted his eyes from the video link, he still heard the cries of the innocent people inside.

He cut all ties with Global Justice after that night – it wasn't the organization he remembered, the one that helped people like Kim and Ron, who just wanted to make a difference. It was like the whole world went crazy after Kim died.

Wade took a deep breath. "Ok. We've got a bunch of microwaves in the cafeteria, PA systems in the gym, and those buggy voice activated lights in the classrooms. Think we can make more defense systems with those?"

The Possible twins grinned. "Hoo-sha."

* * *

The zombies swarmed over the suburb like an army of ants, a fetid carpet of corpses shambling across the landscape. They climbed over cars, crashed through houses, and trampled over gardens, heedless of whatever lay between them and whatever juicy human brain they could get their rotting hands on. A squad of police cars were fleeing before the mass, having completely emptied out their bullets to no avail.

"The good news," Ron declared, standing on the sombrero roof of Bueno Nacho 582 and munching on the last chips in a bag of Nacos, "is that they haven't gotten to this place yet. Because that would _seriously_ tank."

An irritated, brash voice growled in his mind. (_There's an army of darkness crawling out there, and you're defending a fast food shop?)_

"Was just making sure it was ok, Blacky," he answered, finishing up the bag and tossing it accurately into a garbage bin on the curb. "Me and the Five-Eight-Two have got history, y'know? It's kinda got a bad record with the whole blowing up thing."

(_I gather some of those records were yours.)_

"Hey," the young man shot back defensively, "so I had an episode of dietary mistakes compounded by experimental bad guy formula. I've got recorded evidence of what happened, you know; that so wasn't my fault."

(_I'd really rather not watch any movies involving _you_, monkey-boy; my eyes might melt.)_

"But you don't _have-"_

_ (Shut it. Just - _shut_ it.)_

"Suit yourself." Ron watched the police cars careen down the highway, waiting for them to get to a safe distance.

_What am I doing? _He quietly asked himself for the umpteenth time that night._ Do I honestly think I can do this without Kim? I'm just the sidekick, dammit – I'm no hero. Who am I kidding? I'm _nothing _without her._

He closed his eyes, summoning up every memory he had of her smiling face, her soft red hair brushing against his cheek, her long fingers sliding between his, her gentle voice whispering in his ear. His cybernetic hand clenched tightly in his pocket, the roar of enraged monkeys flooding his mind as images of the girl he loved came crashing into his thoughts.

_I care about dating _you, _Ron Stoppable, no matter who he is. _

_But who am I now? A sidekick without a hero. A guy who lost everything that mattered to him. Someone who disappeared for two years and pushed away everyone who cared for him, because he couldn't deal with the rest of his life. Would she still love me if she could see me now?_

_ You're my boyfriend, and I think I love you._

He gritted his teeth, remembering what he'd lost, and how.

_ Attack Protocol, Target Locked: Weapons. FREE._

He remembered the four words that were his only clue, his only chance at claiming Kim's reckoning.

_Requiem Lacrimosa is complete._

Ron Stoppable stood there for a long second, his black overcoat whipping in the wind behind him, lost in the ghost reveries of a perfect past and an undone future.

_(No more questions, boy. No more doubts.) _the voice in his mind quietly spoke. _(What is your name?)_

"Ronald Dean Stoppable." He opened his eyes. "_Unstoppable Force."_

_(What is your instrument?)_

"The Mystical Monkey Power and the dark twin of the Lotus Blade. The weapon of vengeance wielded by Toshimiru's half-brother, the yin to the Lotus Blade's yang. The unrecorded, lost katana called the Black Lotus."

_(What is your purpose?)_

_ "Revenge."_

_(This moment is the road to reckoning. Let nothing cloud your resolve. Let nothing stand in your way.)_

The young man slowly nodded. "Thanks, Blacky." His right hand gripped the hilt of his katana. "Let's do this. _Boo-yah._"


	10. HR 2: Titan Unbound

Hanuman Rising Arc – Chapter 2: Titan Unbound

* * *

Ron kicked off the sombrero shaped roof of the Bueno Nacho, and then kicked off of empty air again with a blue burst beneath his foot, leaping nearly a hundred feet towards the ravening tide of zombies. At the apex of his jump, the young man flipped over and began to rocket down head first into the mindless mass. (_Hit the music,) _the ebon katana ordered in his ear; Ron yanked the oversized headphones from around his neck and snugged them over his head in mid-dive.

[_Soundtrack: Breaking Benjamin – Simple Design_]

_(The standard form of Tai Sheng Pek Kwar, the one taught by Toshimiru, focuses on knowing your surroundings, holistic awareness, and all that standard kung fu crap,) _the weapon reminded him as he fell. _(Forget all that – you're past that kind of training, and situational awareness should be second nature by now. The advanced Saruken No Kitakiuchi form, the version taught by Hoshimiru, requires one to focus _inward; _single-minded, tunnel-vision, one-tracked buttkicking. You don't need to see anything, or hear anything else except for your soul. This style feeds off vengeance, and you, monkey-boy, have got LOTS of vengeance to wreak. Block off everything except your need for reckoning, and release it in controlled bursts. The first truth of Saruken No Kitakiuchi is this: just because you're pissed off, doesn't mean you fight dumber. You just fight _meaner._)_

Ron's fist smashed into the asphalt surface as he landed, erupting into a blue blast wave that tore apart the surrounding undead. The rest of the fetid, undead wave stopped in its tracks and turned to gaze blankly at the smoking crater in their midst, shuffling towards the sudden intrusion. Without warning a azure-flamed hand snapped out of the grey haze and disintegrated the nearest shambler.

Heedless of the loss, the unliving mass roared as one and charged directly into the smoke, claws outstretched and rotten teeth slavering. A loud click, and the cloud dissipated like tattered paper, as the song of an impossibly sharp blade keened repeatedly. Arcs of dark lightning flashed in the evening dusk as zombie after zombie began to topple over, sheared in halves and thirds.

The Black Lotus clicked a second time as Ron resheathed his companion, feet planted apart and the scabbard held behind his hips in a _hidari waki-gamae _sword stance, his eyes closed. A neat circle of severed zombie parts surrounded the crater he stood in the middle of, the rest of the creatures pausing slightly before rushing forward and climbing over the remains.

* * *

"Hey, I _know _that kid!" the reporter riding the news copter above the scene yelled. "That's Ron Stoppable!"

His cameraman guffawed. "There's no way it's him," he retorted over the whine of helicopter blades. "His hair is black, for starters, and Ron Stoppable was just a sidekick. Whoever is down there's laying down a stone tablet of whupass."

"Zoom in, _dammit!_" the newsman shrieked. "I know those freckles, and I'm _positive_ it's him! Get a good closeup of his face, or I swear to god I'll kick you off this thing! This'll make us both, for life!"

"Hold your friggin' horses," the cameraman grunted, peering into the lens. "What's the big deal anyway, even if it _is_ him?"

"Because, idiot, this is the first sighting of Ron Stoppable, doing the hero thing, in _over two years!_"

* * *

The black-haired young man opened his eyes, calmly watching the surrounding horde encircle him. He nimbly dodged the swipe of a zombie's claw, and lightly hopped up onto the arm in midswing, and jumped off into the rest of the zombie mass. Ron hopped from head to head, looking for all the world like someone jumping on and off half submerged stones in a stream, before kicking off and neatly landing crouched on the arm of a streetlight. From there, he jumped up again, onto a power pole, and began running at a full sprint along the inch-thick power lines as the zombies roared impotently at him and gave chase.

* * *

"What is it, Jim?" Wade asked as he stumbled into the locker room, arms cradling an improvised beam weapon. "I still haven't finished converting all the microwaves into zombie blasters-"

"Something's going on, Wade," the green shirted Tweeb interrupted him. "The zombies stopped for some reason close to the Bueno Nacho shop-"

"-and maybe they're massing up before they head here," his twin finished. "Whatever it is, I think we should check it out."

The chubby genius nodded. "Tim, stay here and finish the rest of the blasters. Let's go, Jim."

* * *

Ron hopped off of the power line and landed back on the road, skidding forward several yards on the heels of both feet before he stabbed the katana into the blacktop to halt his momentum. He straightened up and turned, watching the approaching mass of monsters as he unbuttoned his black overcoat to give his arms more play. "Blacky," he asked as he pulled up his sleeves, "we're gonna need a lot more than old fashioned hack-n'-slash and martial arts to take this bunch down, huh?"

_(I was wondering when you'd let me start having some real fun,) _the blade eagerly answered. _(You ready to seriously party yet?)_

Ron ran the metal fingers of his left hand over the blade's length, feeling the five _kanji _characters engraved into the black katana's sides. Fire, water, earth, wood, and metal – their symbols were etched into the otherwise unmarred surface, shimmering with the power he was feeding into the weapon.

"Hurmm.. let's start with the basics, first – tap five, one each," he commanded, fingers flashing over each _kanji _in sequence.

_(One of these days, we're gonna have to find you a better mnemonic device to channel my power than some geeky card game,) _it complained. _(Whatever – let's PARTY.)_

Each symbol flashed briefly in a dark blue glow, before the glow enveloped the entirety of the young man's body. His hand moved away from the weapon to the ring around his neck, lifting it up to his lips softly as he closed his eyes again. _Wish me luck, KP. Here goes._

Ron sprinted forward, each step covering a dozen feet as he crashed into the front rank of the zombies. He spun the Black Lotus around, a blue trail of fairy fire following the black blade as he lopped off the heads of several zombies in one stroke. The flame trail streaked downward as he dropped to one knee on the downstroke, slashing several more undead in half.

His eyes shut, angry music screaming in his ears, Ron Stoppable sensed every attack, knew the position of every zombie within a thousand feet. The focused power channeled within the katana hummed within his soul, whispering knowledge into his body as he parried, dodged, and counterattacked on pure instinct and willpower.

_(A couple dozen down, a thousand more to go,) _the katana reported. _(You gonna keep this up all night, monkey-boy?)_

The sword flashed upward, slicing an attacking zombie in half, before he backflipped twice out of immediate range. "Let's see just how far I can take this," the young man commented, brandishing the weapon in front of him and running his finger over the symbols again, this time repeating the taps over two of the _kanji_. "Tap three fire, two metal."

_(Careful there, Bobo,) _his companion warned. _(Remember, screwing with the element mix means unbalancing the flow of _ki_ in your body – the more imbalanced, the worse it is. This move's gonna hurt like a cast iron fragger until you get used to it.)_

"I've been hurt before," Ron grunted, as the power began to overload in his veins. He gritted his teeth as he felt the mystic fires eat away at him from the inside. "Trust me, Blacky," he said, remembering an oil rig two years before, "_this is nothing._"

The blade burst into a barely controlled bonfire of magical energies, blue embers hungrily licking up at the sky. His left foot slid forward as he raised the weapon's hilt close to his right shoulder, the hungry blaze rising a foot above its actual length. Attracted to the unnatural blue glow, the creatures surged forward en masse.

Ron's face was calm, almost serene, as he fed more power into the sword. _This is where it begins, _he thought._ With this, I let the world know that Ron Stoppable has come back. With this, I let the world know that KP didn't die in vain – that she left me behind to continue for her._

_With this, I let the one who murdered her know that I'm coming for him. _

His fingers clutched tightly at the handle, his knees bending slightly as the front line of the zombies leapt up into the air at him. Ron's eyes slowly opened, time slowing down around him, as he saw every lucent mote in the air drift past. In his mind's eye was a perfect light, his soul fusing with the mystical power as the sword flared into critical mass. He held the image of that perfect light, as she smiled as him one more time.

"_Black Lotus, Eight Directions Stance: Primal Incandescence."_


	11. HR 3: Aftermaths And Asterisks

Hanuman Rising Arc – Chapter 3: Aftermaths And Asterisks

* * *

The hungry blue flame exploded, the katana's nightblack blade lost within a roaring bonfire. The zombies closest to Ron began disintegrating into cobalt-streaked ashes as the primal fire's tendrils lashed out. Nevertheless, the entire horde continued its mindless advance.

"Reforge," the young man commanded through gritted teeth, ignoring the screams of his overtaxed body as a small drop of blood slid down the side of his mouth.

The flame flared out once more in a blinding flash, before condensing and coalescing around the Black Lotus. As the fires traveled up its length, the entire weapon began reshaping itself into an oversized black claymore. Despite its drastic increase in size, Ron still held it upright with ease.

_(Let's do it, kid – let 'er rip!)_

Ron suddenly dropped the weapon to waist height and swung it around once, ripping apart a dozen more creatures, and then continuing the swing into another complete turn, before swinging overhead and slamming the blade into the ground. A million enraged monkeys howled in the night air, as a solid blue energy crest erupted from the Black Lotus, a tidal wave of flame and force that widened to encompass the entire main road. The flame wave rolled on, ripping up foot-thick chunks of asphalt while swallowing and atomizing every single zombie in its wake; the energy blast died out several hundred feet down the road, after having completely annihilated the mass of undead.

There was a faint hum of relinquished power as the Black Lotus reshaped into its normal form, Ron suddenly dropping to one knee and coughing violently into his other hand. He wiped his mouth, noting with annoyance the flecks of red on his glove.

_(I warned you about that, monkey-boy,) _the weapon chided him. _(You'll be lucky if all you got away with was some internal bleeding.)_

"Sorry to disappoint you, Blacky," Ron replied after another tearing cough, "but I think I'm gonna live."

The black katana grunted in his mind. _(Well, there's that,)_ it acknowledged in grudging respect. _(But I'd suggest you lay off Primal Incandescence for a while until you advance some more in your training. You gotta get used to shifting the _ki_ flows in your body, first. Besides, it's great for offing the occasional infestation of brain-eating movie rejects, but it's not the easiest move to pull off in a duel. And you know that's how this is gonna end, kid.)_

The young man nodded, still on one knee, looking down the ruined, smoking roadway. "Just him and me. I know, Blacky. I know." He slowly pulled the headphones back down to rest around his neck. "That's all I've been thinking about."

_(Still and all,) _the blade continued, _(that wasn't too shabby for a first run. Things'll get harder from here on out, though. You just let the world know you're back in business, big time. Whoever messed up your life is gonna come after you, or at least send big, unfriendly goons.)_

"That was our plan, wasn't it?" Ron asked absently as he unsteadily rose back up, leaning on the katana for support. "Beats trying to find him."

_(Just reminding you, monkey-boy. This ain't gonna be easy _or_ quick._ _H__oshimiru took over a decade to exact his vengeance, and all he had to deal with was the Japanese Shogun, his armies, and three entire ninja clans. This job could take the rest of your life – literally.)_

"I lost the rest of my life a while back, Blacky," he answered quietly while resheathing the katana. "That sounds like a fair trade to me." He looked up at the night sky, and then back down the road. "Now, for a more important topic - I wonder where I can score some more Nacos this time of the night? Ghostbusting makes me mad hungry."

* * *

From atop a hill in adjoining Upperton, a red-haired man lowered his nightvision binoculars, watching the black-haired young man walk away. A small, vicious grin spread across his face, as he slid the specs into his trenchcoat, and tucked an ancient tome of necromancy beneath his arm. He whistled as he turned away to disappear into the darkness, a scabbarded rapier tapping along the side of his leg.

* * *

Legend's End

"I want confirmation on that report," Marcus Winters barked as he entered the communications hub, a circular module with hundreds of flatscreen monitors floating atop antigrav bases. Several dozen men in lab coats scampered among humming devices, their voices drowned out by the buzz of machinery. One of them walked up to the white haired commander, a slim computer tablet in his hand.

"RF particles were detected in significant quantity, sir," the technician reported. "One of our satellites immediately retasked to focus on the energy source – Middleton. Energy signature and location make sense – I'd guess it's the subject."

"I don't pay you to _guess_," Winters snarled in the cowering flunky's face. "_Confirm_ it. I'm busy with any number of important things, and I don't appreciate being dragged away from them for your wild conjectures-"

"We've got an intercepted newsfeed coming in," another technician yelled out from the other side of the communications hub. "Denver bureau uploading to CNN, this looks like the confirmation we've been looking for."

"Patch it over to me," the older man ordered, as he crooked a finger. One of the largest floating screens nearby levitated over to him, an unedited news report playing on it.

_"- which would be significant, considering that this is the first time that Mr. Stoppable has been seen in several years,"_ the blond, British man spoke into the camera. _"Despite some physical differences, this appears to be, by all accounts, Ronald Stoppable, the late Kim Possible's partner. Furthermore, our affiliate was able to capture these stunning images of the former hero sidekick in action."_ The view immediately changed to an unsteady, aerial shot of the small war Ron waged with the zombie mass.

A haughty smile spread across Winters' face as he watched his pawn on the screen. "Well, well, _well_," he murmured softly. "It seems like you've spent your years in seclusion wisely, Stoppable. Now, then – to see just how wisely you spent them. Let us see how far you've explored your potential, _Hanuman._" He turned to the trembling toady behind him. "Get to an encrypted channel. Find Lukas – wherever the hell he is – and have him assemble both primary combat teams. This is a Priority-Alpha command."

"Both teams, sir?"

"_Both _teams. The Nightmare Council _and_ The Verdict of Steel."


	12. HR 4: Aquamarine Memories

Hanuman Rising Arc – Chapter 4: Aquamarine Memories

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Shego wasn't as impatient as her rep made her out to be, she mused absently; the car ride back to her place from the airport took _forever, _and there was nothing to do except look out the car into the driving rain. She was perfectly willing to sit back and let things flow on their own. One only needed to look at her long and storied career with Doctor Drakken; between a long string of utter failures and some really _ridiculous_ ideas (the advertising campaign for mind control shampoo? Really?), she'd actually been rather patient with her criminal partner. If tolerance for idiocy was a virtue, the Vatican would have canonized her _years_ ago.

Besides, in the years since she'd gone 'legit' (which was a dubious assertion to some; admittedly, a 'private security consultant' was really just a step up from a mercenary, albeit a _legal_ one), she'd had time to think over her criminal career. Shego was forced to admit, there was probably a reason why she'd stayed with Dee for all that time – she was easily bored, pure and simple. The assorted screw-ups she'd had to endure all those years – good grief, _all those screw-ups! _– had been little more than a reason for her to dance with danger. When the cards were down and the guns were drawn, that was when life got _good._ Oh, sure – she'd been on the losing side most of the time, but that was the thrill of it, right?

A year or so after the 'Lorwardian conflict', she'd gotten together with Kim and her sidekick for a night out on the town. Over drinks and entirely too much fast food for her figure, they went over some past fights, including that one time with the Tempus Simia. It was then that Shego realized that if she really put her mind to it, she'd probably have been able to take over the world – so why didn't she?

And then she remembered her alternate future self – high, mighty, powerful… and _ohsoutterly bored-_looking. Brainwashing facilities? Green-and-black uniforms? _Club Shego?_ What was the _point?_ She'd rather keep losing and having fun – ruling the world seemed like _such_ a drag.

When one got down to it, that was probably the reason she'd taken the amnesty offer along with Doc Dee. For once in his misbegotten career, the blue guy'd succeeded wildly, and it sure wasn't at world domination. At that point, she really didn't have a choice – just because she'd put up with Dee's shenanigans over the years didn't mean she was going to stick at it with some _other_ megalomaniacal moron. Who would she work with? Dementor? She'd have fried him after the second _fraulein_. Killigan? She _hated_ golf. The Seniors? Oh, sure, the old man paid good, but everything he knew about evil plots must have come from poorly-translated-into-Spanish Remington Steele movies. And she didn't even _want_ to get started on Junior.

"Miss Go? We're here."

Shego started, startled out of her musings. "Oh – thanks, George." She pulled down the sunglasses from her eyes, and shrugged on her purse. "And I keep telling you, it's Miss _She_go."

"My mistake, ma'am, sorry."

"That's ok, George, I won't toast you – at least not yet. I hate driving in traffic," she replied wryly as she pushed open the car door, and walked out onto the marble stairs of the estate she shared with Drakken. Okay, admittedly Dee paid for it, so technically it was _his_, but still.

The whole going straight thing was working for Doc, Shego thought, slipping again into reverie as she strode through the oak doors and made her way up the spiral staircase to her rooms. She had no idea how they'd managed it, but Kim, her dad, and Monkey-boy persuaded Dee one night after the blue guy held up a bank – just out of habit, really. From what she'd heard, the Doc finally realized that he'd make almost as much money _selling _his inventions as he would have using them to conquer the planet. And as for the whole distasteful 'legality' of it all? When Drew found out the kind of prices he could charge, by selling his plant formula to filthy rich corporations that the EPA had sued into repairing environmental damage? Well, that was nothing short of highway robbery, and Drakken's criminal impulses were immediately soothed.

Of course, Shego wouldn't let Drakk run away with the profits himself. Besides, a man as rich as he was, and legal to boot, was now a target for the very kind of criminal they used to be. The blue boy needed muscle, and the green girl needed money.

And no, it wasn't like they had a _thing_, she thought to herself in irritation as she walked into her room, dropping her bag to the floor and her purse to the bed. At least she didn't think so – it took two people to have a _thing_, and Drew sure as hell still wasn't making any romantic advances on her. So they didn't have a _thing_. Right? _Right_?

"I'm too tired to think," Shego muttered to herself, collapsing onto the bed facefirst and spread-eagled. It had been a long week in the Balkans, and she was looking forward to a few days of sun, sand, and sherries. She needed it – her mind was wandering all over the place, a sure sign of building stress and fatigue. First, she'd call up Drakk and ask for –

" – waitaminnitwhat do I need to ask Doctor Dee for?" she yelped, bolting upright on her bed. That settled it – she was officially bailing for the Mediterranean! She was a strong, independent woman and she didn't need to ask for Drakken's permission. Or approval, or even a 'have fun', cute as _that _would be, coming from _him_ of all people –

"AAAAGH!" She snatched up the remote to her plasma screen television with one hand, the other blasting an innocent neo-classical bust into post-mortem dust. _Enough!_ Some boob tube would clear her mind, if only temporarily – some mindless news, just to keep an eye on things, and then off to her TiVo and some Psych. James Roday was _so_ hot.

_"- the big story of today, is of course, the event that happened just a few hours ago in Middleton," _the vapidly handsome anchor droned on, as Shego ducked into her bathroom to splash some water on her face. _"Who could ever have guessed_ _it?"_

_ "That's right," _the buxom blonde next to him gushed. _"It was none other than Ron Stoppable himself who came to the rescue, and how!"_

Shego's head popped out of the bathroom door, a towel around her hair and a look of disbelief on her face. "Say _what_?"

"_Sporting a decidedly new, more mature look, the former sidekick _decimated _an incoming zombie wave that threatened his hometown."_

_ "Not only that, but he seems to have picked up some brand new skills along the way!"_

The green-skinned woman stumbled out the bathroom door, staring at the screen in disbelief as yet another replay of Ron's dramatic reemergence was shown on the television. She'd seen him step up before – that one time with those two Lorwardian maniacs, and a couple of other times after that. And he'd only gotten better on those rare occasions that he had to bring his A-game… but _this_? She had her DVR replay the scene several times, her trained eye picking away at his stances and close combat technique. As one of the best hand to hand combatants in the world, she was well equipped to critique his style – except that there was _nothing_ to critique.

He'd disappeared for over two years, and came back with more game than the Super Bowl.

"He did it," she whispered disbelievingly, the remote slipping from her fingers. "All that talk from way back then… he _meant_ it. He went, and he actually _did_ it, that crazy monkey boy."

Shego's mind slipped back to just before Ron Stoppable disappeared from the world, and to the last conversation she had with him. It had been confused and rambling at the time, or so she had thought – the bitter musings of a boy who'd just lost the most important thing in his life. She'd always wondered why she was the last person he talked to, considering all his other friends from the whole hero-spy side of things.

And now she thought she was beginning to understand why.

* * *

Upperton, Two Years Before

_Shego wrapped the bathrobe around her body, sitting down on a pool chair, and lifting up a margarita to her lips. There was something especially relaxing about swimming at night – no creepy stalkers trying to catch her in her swimsuit, snapping photos of this and that. She wasn't ashamed of her figure, not by a long shot, but pool time was _ME _time. Amnesty or not, the next freak she caught on Dee's estate with a camera was going to get a faceful of green fire – she absolutely HATED being interrupted during her relaxation time._

_ She felt it more than she saw it – the faintest hint of movement, somewhere behind her. More paparazzi, or maybe a burglar? Whoever it was, he/she/IT chose a bad time to show up. It was _so_ burn time._

_ Her hand lowered the margarita to the floor tiles, before she whirled around and aimed a glowing hand at the intruder._

_ "Oh for the love of… _really_, Ron? Are you trying to get KILLED or something?" Shego growled in annoyance, her energy aura fading down as she picked up the glass again. "What are you doing here this time of the night, anyway?"_

_ Ronald Stoppable, former sidekick, was sitting on a folding chair at the far edge of the pool. His face looked pensive, dirty-blond hair scattered over his eyes like disheveled hay. He was leaning forward slightly, hands clasped together, eyes seemingly looking far away. "Hey, Shego."_

_ "Don't you _'hey Shego'_ me, kid," she warned, standing up and folding her arms._ _"You of all people should know that it's not smart to try and sneak up on me. Whatever happened to that well-honed survival instinct of yours?" Cowardice was the word she'd have preferred, but whatever._

_ The young man continued looking of into the distance, as though he didn't hear a word she said. "You ever wonder if Kim would have approved of the way things turned out for everybody? Y'know… the choices we've made. You, Drakken. Me."_

_ The green woman gave a long, exasperated sigh and scratched her head. "Listen, kid, I seriously don't need to listen to this at this time of the night. Call a crisis hotline or something, or better yet, talk to one of your _closer_ friends. I've got waaay better things to do." She turned around, hiding the expression on her face. She didn't care that much for the blonde, sure – but Kim had ended up being one of her closest friends, a little sister to her. Okay, so they yelled at each other more often than not, and most sibling fights didn't end up as five-minute melees – but she did miss the red-haired brat. And she wasn't sure that she was ready to talk about Kim yet, least of all to _him_._

_ Ronald continued, ignoring what she'd just told him. "I know I'm not the greatest guy in the world – I'm not, but KP still accepted that. Somehow, for some reason, she liked me the way I am. The way I was." His head tilted to one side, as though asking a question to the air. "Do you think she'd approve if I changed?"_

_ Shego rolled her eyes. "Aiyayay. RON. Do I look like a pshrink to you? Actually, don't answer that," she hurriedly amended, knowing Ron's propensity for nonsensical replies. "Look, you've been cooped up in your room for six months. I appreciate the fact that you've finally decided to leave your cave, but why me? We barely know each other."_

_ He blinked and finally turned to face her. "Because you're the only one who'd understand." His sad, empty eyes looked up at her. "Do you remember that question I asked you in the spaceship a few years ago?"_

_ "YES, Ron, I remember. And NO, I don't scare, not for anything, not even change."_

_ "But you did change. And not just once." He looked away again, a lopsided smile on his face. "I used to be afraid of change. I still am. But everything's changed… and yet there's still so much more that has to change."_

_ "Kid, you're babbling. I think you need a good night's sleep –"_

_ "Ron Stoppable failed," he said quietly, but with conviction and steel that she'd never heard from him before. "He was too weak to protect Kim Possible. KP was always the one who protected him, you know. But he failed when _she_ needed _him._"_

_ Shego drew in her breath with a sharp hiss. "You're talking in the third person, kid. I said I don't scare, but you're starting to freak me out."_

_ "And so that has to change," he went on. "It's too late for Ron Stoppable to protect her… but maybe _I_ can still avenge her."_

_ "Avenge? Kid, can you take one New York minute and slow down –" She paused, finally noticing the scabbard he held loosely in one hand. "Ron – what are you holding?"_

_ "Oh." He blinked innocently at her, and looked down at the weapon he held. "This? This is… this is a friend. A companion."_

_ "Kid, this is crazy talk. You need to sit down, and think things over. Revenge? You don't even know where to start!" Her voice began to rise without her conscious knowledge. "That guy killed KIM, and it's NOT your fault, okay? BUCK UP, Stoppable! Let the professionals find him and take him down. Do you think Red would like it if I let her guy go off and get himself killed?" She was yelling at him now, anger and regret bubbling to the surface._

_ The young man merely shook his head and smiled. "I might die, Shego, but I'm not planning to just get myself killed. Not until I find him." He sighed a bit. "I don't know if this is what they mean by being evil – maybe you would know. There's hatred and pain inside me. And that's supposed to be evil, right? But that's not the reason I came to you."_

_ "Then WHAT is?" she screamed at him._

_ "Because when I come back, I'll have been changed. Into what – I honestly don't know. Ron Stoppable can't stop Kim's killer, not the way he is. But what I'll become… maybe that'll be enough. And out of everyone, all of Kim's friends… and you were her friend, believe me… you're the only who could possibly understand what I'm going through. What I'm going to go through." He paused slightly, running a hand over the sheathed katana. "And maybe the only one who'll recognize me when I come back."_

_ "Come back from what? From some idiotic, half-baked plan for revenge? Oh, I know all about _those_, remember? Doctor Drakken's hench-girl? Stop being _stupid_, Stoppable!" Shego raged at him, yet knowing deep down that she couldn't stop him. _

_ No. She _wouldn't _stop him._

_ Because she wanted revenge almost as much as he did. _

_ He looked back up at her, with a sad smile that almost broke her cold heart. "Shego. Kim's death… it wasn't your fault."_

_ "Shut up! SHUT UP!" she cried out._

_ "It was mine. But I'm going to fix that." He nodded behind her. "Tell Drakk I said goodbye. I like him… even if he can't remember my name."_

_ She turned, noticing the lights in the den and hearing footsteps coming down the stairs. "Stoppable, don't you dare –"_

_ He was gone when she turned back._

_ Drakken was rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he came up behind her. "Shego! WHAT on _earth_ are you screaming about at this time of the night?" He stopped when he saw her looking at the empty folding chair. "Er… Shego?"_

_ She turned and buried her face in his shoulder, and wept. _


	13. HR 5: Everything But The Girl

Hanuman Rising Arc – Chapter 5: Everything But The Girl

THE PLAN WAS FOOLPROOF, Drakken thought. A devilishly clever concoction (if he had to say so himself, and so he did) that ate through _any_ sort of metal alloy and stone, but left paper and pure gold completely intact! He would use it on Fort Knox itself, assaulting it with a brand new army of Synthodrones and his plant minions, allowing him to steal the untold riches that lay in there! Once he had America's financial lifeblood in his grasp, he would be able to dictate terms to the remaining superpower in the world! It was ingenious! Brilliant! FOOLPROOF! It was –

" – utterly idiotic. Don't you agree, Mr. Lipski? Mr. Lipski… sir?"

"Wha- Eh?" Drew Theodore P. Lipski, president, founder, and sole shareholder of Drakkonian Measures, blinked out of his dreaming stupor. He looked down a long, oak table at his board members, all of whom were looking at him expectantly. "Who said that? How DARE you say that to me! And most importantly, WHAT did you say!?"

A dignified, older man stroked his moustache and carefully repeated, "We were discussing the petroleum companies' movement to have us labeled as antitrust. Just because we're the only one they can get reliable environmental reconstruction from, doesn't automatically make us a monopoly. If some other scientist comes up with the means to do so, then let them compete! Isn't that completely idotic?"

"Oh. OH." Drakken slumped down into his plush leather chair. "Right, of course. Whatever you say." He sighed as the wizened gnomes around him continued to discuss credit derivatives, proprietary trades, and other arcane financial matters.

What did HE care about such things? He was a respected scientist, a brilliant one! As long as the money kept rolling in, let the gnomes (and Hank Perkins) worry about the business side of things. And the money would keep rolling in as long as he kept inventing, and Mother only knew how much _invent_ he had in him. If someone told him five years ago he'd be fleecing rich businessmen – LEGALLY – by simply coming up with something new every week, he would have laughed. And try to blast him with a shrink beam. And probably fail.

Doctor Drakken, former criminal mastermind, reformed archvillain, and decorated hero stood up and shrugged on his trademark double-breasted blue coat. He responded to his board members' farewells with grunted noises, and padded out of the boardroom on booted feet. The blue skinned scientist blew on his hands and stuffed them down his pockets.

The money was nice enough, he grumbled to himself as he walked down the long corridor. At least now his Mother didn't have to tell the neighbors that he was some small time radio talk show host (_hah!_). He'd finally earned the respect and accolades he'd yearned for all his life – a medal from the United Nations, a Nobel Prize for biochemistry, and a cover page picture on both Time AND Forbes magazine.

And, indeed, the first few years was just great – no more having to hole up a lair in some forsaken wilderness, hiring incompetent henchmen, and having his latest invention blow up in his face. True, Shego'd hung onto his coattails, but truth be told, it was comforting to have the woman accompany him in his greatest caper yet – going legit. She'd moved into his estate without warning, bossing him around as usual and grabbing the lion's share of the place – but if Drew were forced to admit it, he didn't mind all that much. The fact that the phat crib was HIS, was bragging rights enough – so what if the she-devil pranced around like she owned the joint? As long as the vast, subterranean complex beneath it was his _sanctum sanctorum_, and long as he was left to pursue his fantastic discoveries in peace, he didn't care. And as long as she enjoyed the place... he was happy.

_And THAT, Drew, is the problem, isn't it?_ After that single disastrous date years ago, right after he was awarded the medal, that was the extent of his advances towards her. It would take gamma-scopolamine, a blowtorch, and a dirty sock to force him to admit it – but he liked making her happy. What else could he do? She nearly reduced him to cinders after that date, and since then he'd never worked up the nerve to ask her again.

So their relationship went back to the way it was – bumbling scientist and buttkicking henchwoman. Except that he knew now what he felt about her. It was foolishness, he knew – preposterous and ridiculous. The woman was a tigress; volatile, untameable, and bloody-giggling-MAD. There was no way it was going to work, and he was far too proud a man to go on his knees and beg.

He started as he saw a group of uniformed men turn the corner and look at him. On habitual instinct he ducked inside the nearest door – a maintenance closet, and yelled out, "You'll _never_ catch me! _HA HA HA!_" Drakken immediately fumbled for the escape door he'd built into each room.

There was a long, awkward pause, a cough, and then a resigned sigh. "Mr. Lipski, sir… we're your security detail. Remember?"

There was another long, awkward pause, before Drakken poked his head out of the closet. "Er. Oh. Right."

The blue ex-villain sheepishly moved out, the security guards forming around him. The habits of a lifetime died hard, and the death throes were _highly_ embarrassing, he decided. At least his guards had gotten past the snickering stage – that got old really fast. Drakken meekly followed them all the way to his waiting car.

Wade Load, former information specialist to Team Possible, stood at the street corner and stared down what was once a main road. Several hundred feet of tarred asphalt had been torn up like so much soft topsoil – not a single zombie was left to be seen. His first thought was that they were too late, that a VTR team had gotten to the heart of Middleton and ripped it apart with indiscriminate firepower. But on closer inspection, the devastation was careful and controlled; only the road itself had been destroyed, with foot-deep furrows caused by some unknown force. The damage profile didn't match any kind of ballistic or energy weapon the reclusive genius knew of – whatever this was, it was likely to be some form of superpower.

"Wade!" Jim called out, scampering towards him with his cellphone in hand. "Tim just called me up – you've gotta hear this!"

The chubby young man turned to the excited teenager. "What's happening, Jim?"

The Tweeb took a second to catch his breath, panting with his hands on his knees. "Timothy caught a news flash just a minute ago, and…"

Wade blinked as he waited for his friend to finish. "Um… and?"

"… oh, right, sorry," James continued sheepishly, between pants. "I'm not used to not having Tim not finish my sentences."

"That's a lot of nots. What did Tim say?"

"Here's another one – you're _not_ gonna believe this."

"Okay, I _get_ it – what won't I believe?"

Jim straightened up, took one last deep breath, and grinned. "Ron was here, Wade. _He_ did this. He saved Middleton! _He's back!_"

Wade merely looked at him for one long second, before a smile spread across his face. "I knew it," he whispered. _"I knew he'd come back."_ He raised his voice. "Do you know what this means, Jim?"

"Apart from the obvious?" the Tweeb replied, looking pointedly at the swath of destruction.

"It means Ron's on a mission." The young man turned to look down the road, still smiling. "And he's gonna need an intel guy."

"Shego?" Drakken looked up at the staircase, puzzlement on his frowning blue face. "I thought you just got back. Why didn't you call me?"

"I don't _need_ to call you for anything, Doc," the woman growled, zipping up her leather bomber jacket over her green catsuit as she walked down the stairs. "If anything," she muttered, "_you_ should be calling _me_."

"Eh?" The look of confusion deepened, crinkling the scar beneath his eye.

"Sigh – never mind." Shego rolled her eyes, and lifted up the sling bag she'd been carrying. "I've got something to do, Doctor Dee. I'll be gone for a while, so hold down the fort and all that." She nonchalantly waved at her employer and began to move down past him.

Drakken's hand suddenly grabbed her by the wrist, his eyes looking down at his feet.

The woman looked down at his hand, and turned to glare at him, emerald fire licking around her fingers. "Drew. I'm not gonna tell you twice. _Get your hands off me. NOW._"

"I caught him on the news, Shego," the mad scientist spoke quietly, not letting her go. "I know where you're going."

The malachite glow receded to faint embers, although the green woman still shook his hand off with an irritated grimace. "Then I don't need to tell you, do I, smarty-pants? Now get out of the way, _Drew_." _Please, _please_, don't make me hurt you. I _have_ to do this._

The man looked up, eyes unreadable beneath the yellow chandelier lights, but unflinchingly meeting her gaze. "Where's your sense of responsibility, woman? I can't have my security chief traipsing around willy-nilly and unsupervised now, can't I?" _I don't care how hard you hurt me, you hellion, but I'm _not_ letting you do this alone._

"You don't _own_ me, Drakken. I don't care what I said or what I signed; I go where I want to, _when _I want to. Get with the program, or get out of the way." _And_ _stay out of the way, please; I don't want to lose someone I care for _again_._

"You can't talk to me like _that!_ I _demand_ that you tell me what you intend!" _Because if you intend to walk out that door, you damnable chartreuse succubus, I'm walking _after_ you_.

_"That's enough, Drew!_" Shego yelled in his face. "_Why_ are you so. Freaking. STUBBORN! What do _you_ care if I'm going to go find Ron?" _What do _you_ care if I'm going to throw my life away to find a ghost – a ghost that killed a red angel? The sister I never had?_

_ Because she saved me too – and because I won't let you throw your life away alone. Because I- _

"Because I l-" Doctor Drakken screamed back at her, barely managing to stop on the third word.

"What?" Shego suddenly drew back. "Because you… what?"

"I… " The man screwed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath before opening them again to meet hers.

For the faintest second, as Drakken's eyes were shut, Shego's softened as she looked on the clumsy, cackling egghead she'd chosen to tie her fate to all those years ago. But the forests had hardened to moss agates as Drakken stared at her again.

When he saw the cold resolve in her eyes, the voice of self doubt that plagued Drew Lipski for so long whispered once more in his ear. _You know what you feel, but face it – she doesn't, and she never will._

"Because I… l-learned something, from all this time in the supervillain business," he stammered, looking back down unsteadily at his feet.

Drakken missed the tiny drop of her shoulders, the disappointment that she didn't acknowledge herself.

"As much as it pains me to admit it," he continued, forcing his normal tone of brilliant arrogance to assert itself, "Kim Possible was my most formidable foe. She forced me to dig deep, and outdo myself with every scheme. By all rights, I should have been the one to beat her, not some unknown, nameless nobody." The reformed villain straightened up, the half-truth reinforcing itself with each lying word. "Can you imagine what that will do to my reputation? I _will _not let this stand! Whoever this… this upstart is, _I_ shall be the one to _crush_ him beneath my expensive, steel-toed Doc Martens!" He slammed his foot down solidly on the staircase, his lips thinning to a determined, grim line.

Shego crossed her arms, assessing his dour countenance for a long minute before speaking. "Drew."

"Mmm-hmm." The lips remained shut, the eyes held their stare.

"You stubbed your toe on the step, didn't you?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"You can scream that high pitched girly scream now. The front door's closed."

Drakken made an undignified yelp, grabbing his injured foot and hopping down the stairs like an epileptic rabbit.

The female fighter heaved a great sigh, raising a palm to her forehead. "_Ay, Dios Mio_." She walked down the flight of stairs, passing by the injured scientist. "Sorry, Doc," she said pityingly, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm not gonna be able to spend every waking minute babysitting a mad inventor. When I need a death ray or mind control shampoo, I know where to call you." _Sorry, Dee – but you're no fighter. And I can't bring you to the man who took down Kim Possible. _She walked out the front door and down the marble steps, raising a hand in farewell. _I'm sorry, Drew._

_ Goodbye._

Shego had thrown the bag inside her Jaguar when she heard the door slam closed behind her.

_"SHEGO!"_

She leaned her head on the car door for a second and sighed, before slowly turning, green energy coalescing around her hands. "You're starting to really irritate me, Doc. Let me run you through a checklist – maybe your scientific numbskull can get _that_."

"One, _I _was Kimmy's archnemesis, not you. That guy's on my hitlist and neither you nor Ron are getting in my way." As she stole Drakken's lie her fists clenched, the energy sheath solidifying around them.

"Two, he took out Ron and Kim together. But I'm better at fighting than Kimmy was – always have been, and I've only gotten _better_. I'll be the one to take him down." She took one step away from the vehicle as the aura surrounding her hands reshaped into opaque power gauntlets, a long energy blade jutting out of each one.

"Three, you can't even defend yourself unless you've got your plant formula, and even then you're not much better in a real fight than a snowball in hell." Shego was hoping she could make Drew see reason, but if she had to knock him unconscious for a while, it would give her time to get away from him. "So unless you've got something to bring to the table that's not a one-legged chicken in a buttkicking contest, you ain't going nowhere, Doc."

Drew Lipski stood on the threshold, both fists clamped tightly along his sides. Everything Shego threw at him was the absolute truth – they both knew that. That was why he'd first hired her as his second in command, after all – he was the brain, while she was the beautiful and deadly fist. Everyone knew that Doctor Drakken brought nothing to a straight up melee.

His mind wandered to an argument he had, another age and another life ago.

_Oh, c'mon, KP – you can't seriously be listening to this guy!_

_ I'm not speaking to you, what's-your-name, I am speaking to Kim Possible – much as it pains me to do so._

_ Mmmkay, Drakken. Sure – why not? I'll do it._

_ KP! Have you lost your MIND? Did you sniff the mind control shampoo?! _

_ Despite your adamant refusal, Miss Possible, I expect nothing but – er… wait, what did you say?_

_ I said yes, Drakk. I'll do it._

_ It's the shampoo, oh GRIEF, it's the shaaaaampooo… sob!_

_ You're doing this for Shego, right?_

_ W-What!? PREPOSTEROUS! That she-devil does not influence my plans in any way! _

_Come back, Miss Possible, it's me! Ron! Don't you recognize your Ron, Miss Possible?_

_Oh, quiet, Ron. Look, Drakk, if all you really wanted was to protect yourself, why did you rely on Shego all this time?_

_ She's my henchwoman! Of course I have her do my bidding!_

_ Okay, I'll ignore that sexist comment this once. But face it – you could have learned a long time ago. You're a smart cookie. And now all of a sudden you're asking _ME_? Your archenemy? This isn't for you, Drakk – this is for her, isn't it?_

_ Why – of all the insane, ludicrous ideas! Enough! Will you, or won't you?!_

_ I said yes, didn't I? You're so silly, Drakk. Don't worry – I'll help train you. _

_ You had better keep your promises, Possible._

_Hey, I can't work miracles – but who knows? You've got the motivation. I know you can protect her, if you try._

Drakken took a calming breath, standing up straight and folding his arms behind his back. _There's so much I can't tell you, Shego – so much that you will never know. But this one thing – if this is what it takes to prove myself, woman, then it's time for you to know._

"Actually, Shego, there is one little thing I can bring to the table," the blue man spoke, calling on all the accustomed command in his voice. He found it easier, that way, with his mind and posture focused on being in control. "But there's something else I need to tell you, first."

"Sure, Doc, whatever you say." _Drew, please don't do something stupid, not now_. _This'll be over in a second. _She prepared to spring forward.

Drakken raised his right hand and brought it to chest level – and smiled. "You're harshing my mellow." He swept the arm sideways in a cutting motion towards the green skinned woman.

Shego's eyes widened as a shockwave of truck-sized plants burst through the marble, erupting in a crawling verdant carpet towards her.


	14. HR 6: Proof Of Concept

Hanuman Rising Arc Chapter 6 – Proof Of Concept

* * *

SHEGO JUMPED OFF TO THE SIDE, barely managing to get out of the way. The surging tide of verdure ripped through the Tuscan driveway, foot thick spikes of plant matter bursting out from where she'd been standing only a second before.

The green woman landed on her feet and one hand, skidding sideways as she stared at her car, now impaled a dozen feet off the road on a small grove of giant plant spikes. "Oh... oooh-kay. That's... new."

Doctor Drakken merely grinned evilly, cracking his knuckles. "Oh, Shego – you have NO idea. I've always been a formidable opponent, but NOW you've forced me to reveal the true extent of my power!"

* * *

_"Oh come on, I SUCK at this!" Drakken groaned from his supine position, face down on the gym matress. "Just leave me alone to nurse my broken bones and weep in pain, will you?"_

_ "Oh, stop being a baby and stand up, Drak." Kim's hand grabbed his and yanked him upright relentlessly. "This hurts a lot less than cheerleader tryouts."_

_ "You smashed my head into the ground! With TWO FISTS!" the blue man wailed. "How does cheerleading even compare to _that_?"_

_ "You obviously don't know Bonnie Rockwaller very well," Ron commented from a bleacher to the side, voice muffled as he continued to stuff Nacos into his mouth._

_ Drakken raised a hand in protest as he caught his breath, his other hand on his bent knee. "This is madness, woman!" _

_ "Probably, 'cuz this sure as shakes ain't Sparta," the blond spectator quipped._

_ "Your juvenile movie references are lost on me, what's-your-name," the mad scientist retorted, before turning back to Kim, who was doing some quick stretches. "What practical purpose does this so-called training even serve?I don't need to learn how to command my plants by thought – we both know I can order them around by voice-"_

_ A loud backhand out of nowhere spun Drakken around three times before he fell over heavily onto his rear. "OW! What was _THAT_ for!"_

_ "Proving a point," Kim grinned cheekily as she helped him up again. "I could have hit you eleven more times before you could finish that sentence. You could be deafened, silenced, gagged, or any other kind of nastiness bad guys like to inflict on good guys – you should know. Once you've gotten the hang of controlling the plants by thought, though, you'll be able to defend against most other things – like another cheap shot. Like, for example, this one." Her foot suddenly lashed out at his face._

_ He'd been in the middle of grudgingly mulling her point over in his mind, his thoughts on using the mutant plants, when the attack came. His mind reflexively screamed "DEFEND" as he flinched from the incoming blow. _

_ A solid barrier of thick vines shot out from his sleeves and formed a wall in front of him, Kim's front kick thudding ineffectually against a foot of entwined vegetation._

_ He heard her chuckle from past the shield. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"_

* * *

For the better part of two years, both Kim Possible and her blond boyfriend (_what _was_ his name again?)_ beat the living snot out of him repeatedly, introducing his face to the ground and getting him back up. He'd learned more about hand-to-hand combat than he ever wanted to know. He still wasn't a martial artist by any means – the thought of using his own limbs to hit someone was downright barbaric – but his trained scientific mind was now able to recognize melee patterns. Even if he couldn't pull off those fancy kung fu moves, he could _discern_ them, analyze when an opponent was setting up for a particular technique or combo.

Of course, that knowledge was useless without a means to defend himself, and he'd never be competent at doing punches and kicks. That's where the plants came in.

Drakken's eyes narrowed, tracking down Shego's movements by sight as his thoughts manipulated the giant vines snaking beneath the ground. Entire trees came into being, tearing their way up though ashpalt and stone and forcing Shego back further and further from him.

* * *

The green mercenary knew she should be figuring out a battle plan, a way past all the trees and plants trying to ensnare and hit her, but there was only one thought on her mind.

_What the HELL? Seriously? What the hell!_

When did Dee figure out how to use his plants like this? The most effective combat application she'd ever seen him use them in was back against Warhok and Warmonga – but he needed ten gallons of plant formula and a spray hose. And even then they barely slowed the two aliens down.

She'd always thought that the doc would be _beast_ if he ever tried to use the mutant vines effectively, but he always treated them like an embarrassing nuisance. In fairness, marigold petals popping out from your neck WAS both embarrassing and a nuisance, but their potential was enourmous in the right hands. Drakken, who had all the close combat skills of a pet rock, definitely did NOT have the right hands.

How'd he learn to fight like this?

And more importantly – why?

A cracking sound snapped her out of her thoughts, before a fast-growing oak burst out of the ground from right under her, knocking her back several feet. Shego managed to flip in midair and land on one hand, before turning over into a catlike crouch. She gingerly touched a small bruise on her cheek where the erupting tree had grazed her.

Drakken stood upon the head of the marble steps, a smug grin on his face as a thicket of waving green tendrils surrounded him. The look was common enough – she'd seen it plenty of times, usually right before his schemes fell on their face – but she'd never seen that look of focused concentration in his eyes before. He desperately wanted to prove to her that he wasn't the same bumbling incompetent she was used to seeing. And no, he wasn't – this was a far, far cry from his usual hand-off approach. But why did he want to fight alongside her so badly? What else did he want to prove?

She straightened up, watching another wave of vegetation churn towards her, her green flames flaring up and then solidifying around her fists.

Fine. If the Doc thought he was such hot stuff, he'd get a chance to prove it. She was done thinking.

She charged straight ahead, body so close to the ground as she ran that her fists left a trail of green flame behind her.

It was time to bring it.


	15. HR 7: Scratch Team

Hanuman Rising Arc Chapter 7 – Scratch Team

* * *

WADE LOAD HAD ALWAYS WONDERED what it was like to be a witness to history. He'd studied all the pivotal moments of human civilization – World War II, 9/11, the moon landings, and of course other events lost in the mists of time and memory. It was easier to record things for posterity these days – anyone with a smartphone could record an event as it happened, from flashmob to fearful riot. Nevertheless, recordings and photographs, no matter how vivid, would never capture what it would be like, what it would _feel_, to stand within a moment that would be remembered through the years. What was it like, he'd wonder, to stand within the eye of the storm, the center of the moment?

There wasn't a whole lot of history in Wade's childhood – he was barely into his tweens when the terrorists took down the World Trade Center, and he couldn't even remember the look of worry in his parent's eyes as they stayed glued to the news networks. Though he grew up in a world dominated by Homeland Security and the war on terror, he never really had a frame of reference to compare it to, and thus, never really understood how it became a turning point in modern civilization. He just figured that airport patdowns had always existed.

Wade did remember the day they found Kim's body, of course. He'd been finishing up his thesis on solid-optical floating gate cores when the newsfeed gadget on his desktop chirped with a breaking story. He was about to maximize one of his programming windows when his eyes flashed over the newsfeed's title, and he saw the words that made his blood run cold.

It was the work of a few seconds to find a live feed to the site – to watch strangers cart off the body of one of his best friends, one of the few real people he'd grown close to in his time as a crime fighter. Wade watched as the body bag was gently eased into the back of an ambulance, and as he watched, he began to realize what it was like to stand within one of those moments that changed history.

Like 9/11, Kim Possible's death changed a world that she'd helped build. It was as though her death had violated a cardinal, fundamental rule of the universe; and because that rule had been broken, all bets were off. Though Drakken and most of his associates had wisely quit their criminal careers, others had come up to take their place. Instead of grandiose, silly, get-rich-quick schemes, these new supercriminals frequently cared less for booty than for blood. It seemed as though every day, new atrocities were being committed by sadistic creatures whose powers were equaled only by their ruthlessness.

The common people responded, and in the only way they knew how – force was met with force, violence with violence, blood paid for with blood. Global Justice had permanently banned him from field work – for his own protection, they said – as it dismantled the very same superspy groups it built its core around. These days were the age of the VTR Teams, squads of merciless killers armed with vicious, lethal weaponry. No longer would a superspy risk his or her life to bring a supercriminal to justice; now the VTRT's would descend upon an incident like crows to a corpse, opening with indiscriminate fire, and killing both iniquitous and innocent alike. "Collateral damage," they called it, or even "acceptance losses," with callous nonchalance. It was a far cry from the simple, unspoken rule he'd learned from Kim.

You _can_ save them all.

But the people who'd learned and lived by that rule seemed fewer and farther between, these days. He'd pretty much lost his taste for crimefighting when Ron disappeared – after leaving Global Justice in disgust he'd spent his time freelancing for computer companies, although he never formally got a regular job. Team Possible had been a large part of his life, and with the heart and soul of it gone, he'd been aimless, wandering from computer project to computer project. Never really finding a dream, never truly settling on a goal.

Until today.

He'd overheated one of his laptops, running facial recognition programs linked to every single CCTV in Middleton. If he was going to get back in the game, now was the time – Wade had no idea where Ron was going next. He was fairly certain that Ron was looking for Kim's killer, but even that was guesswork; there was no telling what Stoppable's next move would be. But whatever it was, no matter where it led, Wade Load wanted in on it.

If all he could expect in the coming days was cold revenge, even just that would be worth it. That would be worth the closure, the capping of a chapter whose story had begun with a beautiful, sweet girl named Kim Possible. A girl he was proud to call his friend, the leader of a small family called Team Possible.

The third laptop on his right, the one with the overclocked sixteen-core i9 processors, chirped in the familiar tones that suggested a possible hit. Wade swung around towards it on his swivel chair, chugging down another bottle of soda before tossing it to the floor to join the others he'd ingested since the beginning of this search. Face recognition technology wasn't an exact science; although the programs themselves were nearly foolproof, they were frequently hampered by conditions at the camera site itself. Rain, fog, bad lighting, and even badly maintained CCTV cameras themselves, all had contributed to dozens of 'false positive' readings over the past several hours.

He took one look at the image on the screen calmly munching on a bag of Nacos, and then at the location stamp. _Bueno Nacho 582, Middleton commercial district. Well, duh. _Of course _he'd be there. _Wade got up and yanked on a jacket to ward against the night chill, wondering of what the rest of the future held as he hurried outside.

The young hacker would follow Ron alone into hell, but he couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like if only there were more of them – a kind of spiritual continuation to Team Possible. He shook his head, amused – he couldn't imagine that anyone would choose to join their wild goose chase.

Besides, what kind of people would be crazy enough to become their allies?

* * *

Not too far away, in front of a sprawling estate in north Upperton, Shego thrust forward her open left palm, causing a hail of fiery emerald projectiles to blast open a path in the wall of vegetation ahead of her. She jumped nimbly through the burning breach as pieces of flaming wood fell all around her, not even pausing as she slashed away an oncoming tendril with her right hand. "_DOC! I swear, I will PULL OUT your frizzy eyebrows follicle by unexfoliated follicle when I get my hands on you! Do you know how much I _LIKED_ that car?"_

Drakken gritted his teeth and slashed him arm forward in a sweeping motion, causing another wave of trees to erupt right beneath his green skinned partner. The sound of the pines suddenly tearing free from the stonework and concrete was thunderous, but nevertheless the former criminal mastermind roared over it. _"What do you mean, do I know how much YOU liked that car? It wasn't even yours to begin with!"_

_ "WADDAHECKDOYA MEAN, IT WASN'T MINE TO BEGIN WITH?"_ Shego yelled back indignantly, leaping on top of a surging pine tree and raising both flaming hands above her head. _"Of course it was mine – I OWNED it!"_ The angry woman began shooting pea colored spheres wantonly into the air, before dropping both hands to her sides and shouting, _"I LOVED THAT CAR!"_

"_YOU DIDN'T EVEN PAY FOR IT! I DID!" _Drakken crouched and ducked for cover, both hands above his head as a thicket of willow trees sprung in a circle around him, leaning inward and forming a dome shelter above him. The green spheres began landing right on top of the wooden covering, bursting into patches of vicious, hungry bonfires. Within seconds the mutant foliage within the estate was ablaze with green fires.

Shego walked out of the conflagration, indignant and irritated, as she brushed off charred ashes from her aviation jacket. "Ok, Dee – I'll admit, that was a LOT less useless than most of your undignified, little-girl-like attempts at self defense." She narrowed her eyes, scanning the ruined, smoking remains of the driveway for the blue scientist. "The whole forest-popping-out-from-beneath-the-rock thing? Ok, ok, that wasn't half as shabby as most of your lousy schemes." She was lying through her teeth, it was _HELLA_ impressive, considering that most of the time Drakken was arguing with a mutated marigold.

It didn't matter, though – she wasn't going to let _him_, one of the few good things to ever happen in her lousy, messed-up life, join _her_ on a ridiculous revenge crusade.

"The problem is, Doc," she continued yelling into the night air conversationally, as she held her hands close together, "is that no matter how much catch-up you've been doing, I've been at this game for a lot longer." Between her open palms, a roiling vortex of furious, malachite power began to form. "Sure, you can control trees and make them grow really fast – hip, hip hoo-RAY for you. The thing is, though, I can make stuff BLOW UP. I'm pretty sure that by default, that means I'm going to win. So before this becomes ridiculously painful for you-"

"Oh, She-_goooooooo_?" Doctor Dee's voice sang out in that ludicrous singsong he always used when he was _absolutely_ sure he had the winning hand. "I hate to be the one cramping your style, dawg, but – ooooh, I've always wanted to be the one to say this – look out behind you."

Shego grimaced. "Really, Doc? I mean... no, really? You're gonna try that broken old horse on me?" At this point, she was fairly certain she'd seen the extent of Drakken's capabilities, and while they were both impressive and useful, there was still only so much he could do against a giant green fireball. There was no longer any point in continuing this charade – she prepared to engulf the entire area in flames, planting both feet and pulling back her hands to launch the blast.

It was right then that she heard the snap of two fingers, and felt the rumble beneath the earth. She turned around to see Drakken looming over her atop a giant redwood, his compact form silhouetted against the full moon, teeth gleaming out of his shadowed face in a smug smile. He raised one hand, clenched his fist, and made a motion as if to punch her.

From behind him, another group of redwoods, all far larger than the one he stood upon, erupted and began to twine together into a single mass, reshaping before Shego's disbelieving eyes, resculpted by Drakken's mental command into a single massive wooden fist like the one he was brandishing.

"Shego? Before _this_ becomes ridiculously painful for you... I would suggest you run."

Drakken, still grinning, reared back his fist as the building-sized construct behind him did the same, mimicking his motions.

_"Initiate Morphology: Botanic Onslaught, Type I – _Cambium Spike_."_

* * *

Farther away still, at a run-down neighborhood close to a New York college, a drug dealer flew through a plate glass storefront window and smashed into a table, causing it to collapse in a protest of splinters and wood chips. A few seconds later, a large shadowed figure stepped through the damaged storefront, crushing glass remnants beneath solidly built feet. Over his shoulder was a gigantic, well worn baseball bat.

The criminal tried to raise up his body, feebly backing away from the hulking figure making its way to him. In disbelief, he looked around for all the hired guns and goons he paid for, expecting reinforcements to come and save him at any moment. Instead, all he saw were prostrate, unconscious figures, spent bullet casings, and broken weapons.

"Y-you're dead, man!" the cringing figure blustered, spitting out his words past bloody lips. "Do you know who I friggin' am? Do you know who you're messing with, pal?"

The figure stopped – and then yawned, and scratched at his stomach with his free hand. "Nope. Not a clue. Don't care, either." He lowered the bat and let the end drop to the ground, the makeshift weapon making a loud, heartless thud that caused the injured pusher to jerk and flinch. "But lemme guess – you're some bigshot bagman who's gonna put out a bounty on my head, and you're gonna make some loud threat about 'bustin' a cap' in my face." The brutishly large man paused. "I mean, apart from the horrible grammar and incorrect use – because, really, what kind of threat does 'busting a cap' even signify? – apart from that, all you'd really accomplish is to make a bigger fool of yourself. I mean, THAT'S a feat, but not one you'd be proud of."

"Who sent you?" the man on the ground screamed in fear and pain. "One of my rival dealers? The Mob? The Triad from over at Chinatown?"

"Dude, seriously, you need to watch less movies. Or else find better ones to watch. I'd highly suggest the works of Rex Ingram, and not just Ben-Hur – though that one was bomb."

"Then _who the hell are you?_" the pusher screamed again.

"Who, me? I'm not important. Just someone who happens to be working at a place where you and your kind are very, _very_, unwelcome." He took a few more steps forward and squatted on his knees, placing both hands over the knob at the bottom of his bat. "Look, here's what's gonna happen; a bunch of cops are going to come here soon – though not that soon, judging from the lack of sirens – and they'll go do their thing, right? Now, you and your boys are gonna go with them quietly, and respectfully, you hear? Yes sir, no sir, and all of that, they're nice people who have to work really lousy hours. And when they ask – and they will ask, that's part of their job – you're gonna tell them you and your boys here got into an argument, it got out of hand, and this is the end result. Or was it, this _was_ the end result? Whatever."

The criminal pulled himself up against the wall in a sitting position, laughing cruelly. "You're crazy, man. What makes you think I'd do that? I got a dozen lawyers on tap, and I'll be out in a week-"

"No," the bigger man explained patiently, still squatting, a professorial tone creeping into his voice. "No, you won't. You'll stay inside, and gladly, and hopefully you'll be able to find some inner peace and absolution, eventually becoming a reformed, useful member of society."

"Now, why the f-"

The shadowed, bigger man slapped him on the mouth, a loud crack resounding throughout the walls of the safehouse. "I don't like hearing that kind of language, it sets a bad example for the kids. Now, the reason you'll do what I told you is because if you choose not to do so – and yes, you have the right to choose, it's just that it's a really STUPID choice to make – if you choose not to, I will come back here, and this time, I will actually be _angry_. Now, I was merely annoyed when I heard you were peddling your wares at the college – the kids are in a vulnerable, experimemtal phase of their development, and I can understand the urge to try new things – but still, I was annoyed. Kegs of beer and cases of cigarettes, those are vices any man can understand. However, I draw the line at multisyllable white crystals that requires direct nasal ingestion, or, god forbid, direct intraveous injection. Now, because I was merely annoyed, I came here to quietly and rationally discuss things with you." He nodded towards the unconscious flunkies. "However, your... associates... chose to draw a weapon on me. That was when the discussion turned... lively. Even then, I was _still_ only annoyed."

"The next time I come back, _if_ I am forced to come back, I _will _be angry. And believe me, neither you, nor your unfortunate parents, nor any of your ancestors dating back to the _Mayflower _will want that to happen. This, the Ogre Mountain swears."

The criminal turned as pale as a sheet. "You – you're the... oh godpleasedon'thurtme –"

"I'm just a college teacher named Grant Winchester trying to look out for my kids." The man reached out, and patted the flinching, trembling dope peddler. "I know you'll do the right thing. When you get out of jail, look me up if you decide to finish school – I'll help you out." He stood up and walked out of the dilapidated flophouse, tunelessly whistling to himself as he did so. As he stepped out, the flickering streetlight revealed a large, well built young man whose muscles were disguised by the baggy, ill-fitting teacher's suit that he wore. His close cropped, spiky brown hair quivered in the night air as he cupped one hand to light a cigarette, taking a long drag before walking on to a car on the other side of the street.

The man inside was a middle aged teacher who looked up at him in slight trepidation. "Are you all right, Grant?"

The college teacher named Grant Winchester looked down and sighed, eyeing the bulletholes in his pressed white shirt with distaste. "Aw, _man_. And I just had these dry cleaned." He pushed a finger into the holes, gingerly feeling the bruises where the .45 ACP rounds had smashed and bounced off his _qigong_ reinforced body. He tossed the oversized baseball bat into the rear passenger's seat and grinned at the driver. "Nah, I'm cool, but I'm gonna have to get a new shirt before classes tomorrow."

His colleague nodded. "I didn't believe the stories myself, but... thank you, Grant."

"Meh, s'no big deal. Teaching kids is hard enough, I don't need some gangster wannabe making my job any harder." The man slid into the front passenger's seat and took another smoke. "Beside, it's good to go out every so often and stretch out my legs – we can't afford to have our noses buried in books all day, amirite or amirite?"

"Oh – before I forget, wasn't that kid, Ronald Stoppable, a protege of yours?"

A big grin came over Grant's face. "Yeah, R-Stopps. He wasn't like, in any of my classes, he was way too smart for them, but I was his college advisor. Great kid." Memories came flooding back over the hesitant, sheepish young man who'd come into his fold, the blond kid who was on the phone half the time, talking with his girlfriend.

The other teacher nodded. "There'd been a news report over the radio while I was waiting for you." He quickly sketched out the events that had unfolded barely hours ago in Middleton.

Grant nodded while listening, mind wandering back to the boy he'd been a mentor to. He'd lost almost all contact with Ronald after Kim Possible had died; it was his parents to came to the school take care of all the paperwork associated with dropping out. In the couple of years he'd known him, Grant Winchester did his best to instill a measure of self confidence into the young man; he'd somewhat succeeded, at least to the point where Ronald was capable of making decisions _without_ Kim's express orders.

Not that the girl ever gave that many – she visited Ron many times, and as Grant liked to tell the kid, no man who rolled with a lady like _that_ had any right to have self esteem issues.

He knew Ron well enough to realize how devastated he'd been when she died. And he knew him well enough to know that he was back for a reason. The decision took less than a second for Grant, which, for the impulsive man, was much longer than he usually took.

"Actually, drive me to the airport – I got a plane to catch. And tell the dean I'm going on leave."

"Again?"

Grant Winchester grinned. "Can't be helped. One of my kids needs me."

* * *

Even farther away, in an obscure, small, European principality close to Switzerland, a young princess meditated upon a sparring room floor, her lacy white dress neatly spilling out onto the plush red rug, her knees resting upon the royal crest – a rampant wolf surrounded by a circle of daggers. Her long, silver-and-lavender hair fell over her back in a careful, intricate braid. Her delicate features were in a state of respose, arresting silver eyes closed, both lace-gloved hands clasped peacefully upon her lap.

From every side of the room, rifle armed men in black special operations gear burst out from behind the curtains, weapons raised and laser sights settling on her forehead.

Her eyes flashed open, body suddenly dropping faster than the lasers could track her, both arms lashing out as barbed silver chains shot out from inside her voluminous dress sleeves. In less than a second every single assailant had been pinned to the walls, chains around their limbs, their weapons hanging off the ceiling by other chains. The princess took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pulled off one glove, revealing a hand crisscrossed by arcane diagrams on the back. She made a faint gesture with that hand, causing all the chains to wink out of existence, freeing the men and causing the weapons to fall onto the carpeting with muted clatters. The princess turned to the men, clasping her hands together in front of her shyly, and bowed deeply, as they, the elite members of her royal guard, all laughed and clapped appreciatively.

The commander of her guard, a scarred, thickset man with a bushy mustache, stepped forward and bowed, as the rest of his men collected their weapons and made their way back to the armory. "Princess Natalie, I'm glad to see you practicing so diligently."

The young girl, roughly about eighteen years of age, dipped her head again to her guard commander, taking his arm as he led her out of the sparring room. "Your uncle sends his regards once more, milady," the older man mentioned casually. "He bids me tell you that he stands ready to return you to the throne whenever you are ready."

The princess paused, looking down upon her feet before tentatively raising a gloved hand, fingers moving in sign language.

_[Tell my uncle I am grateful for his loyalty, but I am not ready to serve my people yet.]_

The older man nodded, but frowned slightly.

The silver eyed girl tilted her head slightly, looking up at him as her delicate fingers moved again. _[I have known you since childhood, Colour Sergeant Major Brense. You may tell me what is on your mind.]_

The old soldier cleared his throat as they walked on towards the castle walls. "It has been a long time since... since that day, milady." Brense fell silent for a second before continuing. "Your uncle has done much in your name, and his loyalty is unquestioned – unlike War Minister Jakobs, may his tongue grow black – but you should know what your family... the royal family, means to the people. They need one of the Fangborn to lead them, now more than ever."

Princess Natalie Leila Bellarossern, the last surviving descendant of King Vanderhill IV, the Fangborn Princess, meekly looked away, shaking her head, and clutching at the color sergeant's arms.

Sergeant Brense sighed, and patted the girl's head. "Would that the rest of your family survived that dark day, milady – but we cannot always have what we want. The vultures circle the Principality, and ever closer do they flock with greedy beaks and filching talons." He paused again. "Minister Jakobs and his cronies managed to get Parliament to sign the treaty with Global Justice today. Marcus Winters and his pack of murdering hyenas now have a legal foothold within your lands – and by extension, Jakobs' power grows stronger."

The girl seemed to withdraw into herself, her left hand making the tiniest of gestures.

_[I hate him.]_

"We all do, milady. We all know he killed your family, but the commons think him a 'reformer', a 'man of the people', when he would throw his own mother to the crows – yet his political power is too strong to challenge without tearing the country apart. Aye, Princess, I know that you feel not yet strong enough to challenge him, but you cannot wait forever."

_[My brother promised me...]_

"Aye," Brensen spoke sadly, "your brother had a gift, like all Fangborn, and his Sight was truer than most... but, lady, we cannot wait forever for these 'friends' of his prophecy."

Natalie stubbornly shook her head. _[Everyone called my brother a dreamer, and perhaps he was – but I choose to believe in his dream. I choose to keep dreaming.]_

"I remember, child. 'The clockwork sage will lead the god-beast, him to become your friend and it our salvation.' I remember those words, child, but how long can we dare cling to that faded hope?"

The princess merely looked up into the moon, reaching out a hand as though to touch it.

_[So long as we hope, Sergeant. So long as we dream. The Sage _will_ come.]_

* * *

And as far away as possible, within the heart of the enemy itself, a scientist of Asian descent studied the readings and outputs on a large monitor, all the results connected to the carefully protected regeneration vat.

"TS-6 has reached optimum growth level. All life signs are nominal, all reading indicate that the subject has succeeded in achieving desired physical condition. In fact, the subject's physical capabilites could possibly exceed her original parameters, making this project a success beyond our wildest dreams. Recommend immediate continuation of physical and weapons training.

Analysis: Trojan Sword Six is almost fully prepped and ready for deployment against Hanuman."


	16. HR 8: Rumors Of My Demise

Hanuman Rising Arc Chapter 8 – Rumors Of My Demise

* * *

"Ron." The name hung in the still, charged night air, almost a question.

The young man sitting on the front steps finished off his bag of chips, licking the last drops of red sauce off his thumb, before crumpling the bag between his hands and neatly tossing it into the nearest garbage bin with a two handed basketball throw. He clapped his hands together once, before rubbing them to wipe the nacho crumbs, and then leaning down to swipe off more crumbs from his pants legs. Finished, he finally stood up and straightened, flashing a small smile to the speaker.

"Wade. Dude, what took you so long? I was about to hit me up another set of Nacos."

The hacker grunted as he clambered over the still smoking ruins of road, making his way closer to his friend. "Oh, you know – it was kind of a challenge, looking for a guy lots of people thought was dead and gone."

"Dude, I just blew up Main Street in front of a news crew – how hard could it be to find me?"

"You always loved being small and inconspicous," Wade shot back sardonically, hopping off a dislocated slab of asphalt. A few more steps, and he stood face to face with a friend he'd thought lost for the past two years. He opened his mouth to speak, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him, covering his struggle with a cough before finally saying, simply, "It's good to see you again, Ron."

"Been a while, huh, Wadester?" Ron gave him an insouciant grin, before raising his fist. Wade just smiled back and returned the fist bump, before reaching up to awkwardly pat his shoulder.

"Dude, what's with the hair?"

"Oh, the dye job?" The ex sidekick reached up and sheepishly touched his bangs. "It's, uh... It's a long story. I'll tell you about it sometime."

"I'm sure it'll be fascinating," the black hacker commented, sliding his laptop bag off his shoulders.

"So, you ready?"

Wade Load simply nodded. "Sure – but for what?"

Ron reached for his katana scabbard and unbuckled it, resting the tip of the _saya _on the ground before sitting back down on the Bueno Nacho's front steps, the palms of both hands sitting on the hilt of his blade. He looked back up at Wade, lips thinned in a determined line. "Requiem Lacrimosa."

The hacker simply blinked. "What is it?"

"It's big, and it killed Kim," Ron replied quietly, fingers closing around the Black Lotus' _tsuka _as he spoke his beloved's name. "It's a name for something, the only clue I have about what happened."

"They said it was some crazy with superpowers, some lone wolf nutjob who did it," Wade said, as he looked around, sweeping the surface of a rubbled concrete slab before sitting down on it across from Ron.

"Oh, he was a nutjob, and he had superpowers – and he was alone on that oil rig when we fought him. But there's no way he did it, did all that without help."

"How do you figure?" Wade cocked his head, intrigued.

"He said the words 'Requiem Lacrimosa is complete' as he walked away, along with some other things I couldn't catch. He could have been rambling, but – I don't think so. It must have been some kind of signal, codeword stuff. Listen," Ron leaned forward suddenly, face intent as he hugged the katana close to one shoulder. "How much do you know about what happened that night?"

The other man shook his head. "Barely anything. I only found out about it the morning after... and, well, you weren't talking to anyone during or after the... funeral."

Ron just nodded. "I know, dude – I wasn't... I wasn't _right_, that time." He took a deep breath before going on. "But listen to me – everything that happened on that oil rig, it was precise, planned even. The guy went there to do one job – he wasn't after a ransom, he wasn't after camera time. He was there to kill Kim." He raised his ungloved hand and began gesturing. "I studied the reports, Wade, and a whole lot added up. Let's start with something you'd understand – you remember the viral attack that hit all the newsies during the fight?"

Wade nodded, leaning forward as well and resting his elbows on his knees. "Right – I thought that was a coincidence, actually. Do you know how much effort it would take for a timed, systemic, _simultaneous_ takedown of _all_ the major news networks across the globe? Anonymous and Lulzsec were entire hacker groups spread across the planet, and the best they could pull off was ripping off iTunes for a few days."

"No, I don't know. So tell me how much effort it _would_ take."

The hacker blinked. "Is that question rhetorical? I mean... it's nearly impossible, Ron! It's not like the Matrix, you don't magically teleport inside a mainframe and mess it up from the inside. And don't even get me started on Operation Swordfish, because the hacking in that movie was about as realistic as girls in Japanese cartoons."

"Okay – so how would _you_ have done it?"

"How? For starters, I couldn't have – it would have taken a team, a pretty big one too, working around the clock, with some seriously uber comps. And even then? It would have taken too long to bust open every single network in the amount of time it took. You'd have to, I dunno, you'd have to install backdoors, trojans, false registry entries, for at least a _YEAR_ before the event. And even then you'd have to keep an eye on them hourly, to keep up with protocol, software, and firewall updates. Even a government'd have a hard time pulling that off!"

Ronald just nodded, looking down at his feet and sketching meaningless figures in the dust with the end of his _saya._ "Exactly."

"Exactly?" Wade paused and blinked. "Wait, what do you mean, exactly?"

"Whoever it pulled it off had the resources, the patience, the _willingness_ to kill my Kim. They were willing to throw that – _all_ of that, and more – just to kill her, Wade." He looked up at his friend, eyes haunted by past failure. "The psycho that killed her took both of us down, Wade. I was in monkey mode, in all its blue unstoppable glory – and he broke my leg and wrecked my hand in under a minute." He looked down at his gloved, cybernetic fist, clenching and unclenching his prothetic fingers, and then looked up at his friend. "He appeared and vanished without a trace, someone more powerful than Fiske, Sensei, even the Yono – and _we've never heard of him, and never saw him again_. What does that tell you, dude?"

The hacker paused to consider it. "Then this... Requiem Lacrimosa... if it's as big as you think it is, Ron, it's not gonna be easy to find. Google isn't going to do the work."

The other man smiled. "I got something better than Google, dude – I got YOU."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ron," Wade answered wryly, "but I'm still just one guy. What you're asking me to do is to look for a needle in a haystack the size of the Appalachian Mountains while my hands are tied to my feet."

"You'll figure it out," Ron grinned with irrepressible optimism. "Meanwhile, I'm gonna.." His voice trailed off as he turned around. "Dude, you hear something?"

"I don't..." Wade paused, and then cocked his ear. "Wait, is that a -"

"Copter," Ron said tersely, taking his sword belt and rebuckling it on.

Lights and sounds washed over them, as a black assault transport with the new Global Justice markings swept past the sombrero roof of the Bueno Nacho, slowing down and flaring out just across the road. The helicopter landed, disgorging a number of black clad men in combat armor and gas masks, each one carrying an assortment of guns. They spread out to shield the transport, and from behind them, three people in contrasting white trenchcoats with gold highlights began to emerge and walk towards the pair.

"Oh, _come on_," Wade muttered under his breath, as he stood up and slung his bag back over his shoulder.

"Friends of yours?" Ron asked without turning, keeping his eye on the trio, one hand holding onto his black jacket over his shoulder, the other resting lightly on the hilt of his katana.

"The guys who look like post-apocalyptic Nazis by the copter is a VTR Team, Alpha-Pattern," Wade answered, warily watching them. "Alpha-Pattern team means they're ex-military, mercenary, criminal, and they're probably more familiar with their guns than we are with our families. And they _like_ using those guns."

"Can't be all that bad – I just did their work for them tonight, right?" the other boy quipped. "So we're probably cool – right?"

The hacker grunted. "They're probably mad you didn't give them a chance to blow up half the neighborhood. That's bad enough – but it's those three coming here that worries me."

"Talk fast, Wade."

"That's half of the Verdict of Steel, GJ's primary countervillain team."

"The good half?"

"I don't think they've _got_ a good half, Ron. They're smart, ruthless, and really, _really_ good at what they do."

"... this is the part where you tell me they're a professional knitting club, right?"

"This is the part where I tell you they kill people," Wade replied out of the side of his mouth, keeping his eyes on the trio.

"You've gotta be kidding me, dude. They look younger than WE are."

"Ron... let's just say things have changed at GJ since you left, buddy."

The young man in front, a handsome, platinum blond wearing wire-framed glasses, stopped on the sidewalk across from them. "Mister Load," he called out without warmth, fixing the bridge of his spectacles with his right pinkie. "What a surprise, meeting you here."

"What are you and your thugs doing here, Victor?" Wade growled at him, eyes narrowed.

"Dude, I've never heard you growl before," Ron chuckled softly.

"I _really_ don't like this guy, Ron," Wade whispered back.

"This is Global Justice business, I'm afraid, so I'll have to kindly ask you to leave," the platinum blond continued. "After all, our organization no longer requires your services... obsolete as they are."

"I quit, Victor, I didn't get fired," Wade shot back at him. "Whatever. Go ahead and do... whatever it is you guys do when you're not shooting people." He turned to Ron. "Come on, let's bail. The sanctimonous stink around here just got worse."

"Mister Load." The voice rang out with arrogant confidence, causing the pair to stop in their tracks and turn. "I'm afraid I only asked _you_ to leave. Mister Stoppable, on the other hand, has comitted an offense against the Global Villain Threat Act, of which this country is a signatory of. _He_, therefore, is required to stay."

"Are you – are you freaking kidding me?" the hacker sputtered indignantly. "Do you have any freaking _clue_ who you're talking to? _WHAT offense?_"

"I could name the specific paragraph and article for you, but in deference to your limited abilities, I will spell it out in a manner even you can understand – _vigilantism_." The young man named Victor folded his arms and fixed his glasses with his pinkie again, as his two companions hovered protectively on his flanks, a smug smile creeping across his face. "Mister Stoppable is no longer an accredited member of Global Justice, and even if he were, his contract clearly does not have the updated Rules Of Engagement signature required of all employess. _He_, therefore, must face... justice."

Wade took a step forward, fuming at the raw, naked arrogance. "Are you blind? Stupid? Or do they just teach douchebaggery at the fancy prep school you came from?"

His friend put a calming hand on his shoulder. "Wade, dude, ease up – "

The young black man shrugged it off and continued to vent. "He just saved an entire freaking city, while you and the rest of your paid hitmen were probably off blowing up another one! And you're gonna drag him to _jail?_ Do you even know _who this_ _is? _He's one half of the best team Global Justice _EVER_ fielded, he's taken down more supervillains that you've ever _seen _from your ivory tower, and you have _NO FREAKING RIGHT TO TALK TO MY FRIEND LIKE THAT!"_

"Mmm. Of course he was," Victor replied with uncaring nonchalance. "He was a useless sidekick who rode on the coattails of his girlfriend's fame and so-called skill. Kimberly Anne Possible, correct? Whatever _did_ happen to her? Oh, that's right... she _died_." He began to laugh mockingly.

"Why, you son OF A – " Wade lunged at him, blinded by fury, only to be pulled back by Ron's hands on his arms.

"She was an obsolete device that the world left behind, Mister Load – and everything obsolete is broken eventually. Much like the two of you are. Much like she was, I imagine." He spread his arms. "_WE _are the future, Mister Load – _we_ are the spearhead of a new age of justice. One that will not blink in the face of evil, one that has the strength to do what must be done. Kim Possible was the mascot of a bygone age, Mister Load – a defective clinging on to outdated modes and ideals. She outlived her usefulness, and grew weak and ineffective at the dawn of a new era. _She_, therefore, died from her own incompetence." Victor lowered his arm, again fixing his glasses with the other, flashing a condescending smile. "Come now, Mister Load – there's no need for you to involve yourself anymore. Leave quietly and lead your sad little life to its inevitable conclusion. The fate of the world is in far better hands now." He turned to Ron, looking for all the world like an emperor deigning to pay attention to a peasant. "As for you, Mister Stoppable – an _eminently_ fitting last name, might I add – I would like to invite you to take a ride. Resistance is an option, I suppose, but let us be realistic – you face the elite now, the absolute best the new Global Justice has to offer. There is nothing you can..." His voice trailed off, a puzzled look on his face. _"Pardon me?"_

Wade turned, equally puzzled, to see his friend with his headphones on, peering into his music player as he began to shuffle through the songs – completely ignoring Victor's speech.

After a second, Ron looked up and blinked innocently, pushing one headphone off his ear. "Hmm? Oh, go ahead, keep jabbering. I'll catch up when you're done."

Victor's eyes narrowed, his smile becoming brittle. "I think you fail to appreciate the gravity of your situation, _Mister_ _Stoppable_."

"Bro, seriously? Heard it all before. Been bullied more times than you can count, faced more long winded bad guys than you can imagine. It all boils down to the same thing, I'm awesome, you're not, I'll beat you down 'cause I can." The young man shrugged on his jacket, absently continuing to go through his playlist. "Wade, I know the signs – this guy wants to drag me off to a cage, not because I messed up some law but because he wants to prove he's better than me. Not too long ago, I would have quietly gone along, too... except, y'know, now's not really a good time, dude. Ah, here we go." He pressed the hold button for a second, and then slid the player back into a pocket. "So – I guess I'm _not _going to go quietly along."

Victor stayed silent for a second, before laughing quietly, brushing his bangs away from his eyebrows. "Mister Stoppable... I was _dearly_ hoping you would say that." He snapped his fingers, causing the men in black behind him to step back several paces. "Reinhardt! Genevieve!" he barked, his companions stepping forward. "If you will, please demonstrate to Mister Stoppable why he is an obsolete relic."

"Find a safe place, Wade," Ron called back to his friend, cracking his knuckles. "Listen, Victoria, or whatever the heck your name is – I could have let you go with calling me names. Like I said, I've heard it all before – I'm used to it, and seriously, I couldn't care less anymore." He suddenly smashed his two fists together and glared at the arrogant platinum blond. "But you crossed the line when you talked about my Kim." Ron raised one hand, and tauntingly beckoned to the three of them.

"And now, I'm gonna take your face, and WIPE it on that line. _Let's do this._"


	17. HR 9: Battles Without Honor And Humanity

Hanuman Rising Arc Chapter 9 – Battles Without Honor And Humanity

* * *

THE GIRL STEPPED FORWARD, her brunette _hime_-cut hair swaying with perfect, uniform precision as she walked calmly towards Ron. The other boy, his spiky brown hair bobbing with each step, began to circle around to Ron's side with a cocky grin on his mouth. Victor merely stood there, arms folded, impassively watching them. In response, Ron merely returned a toothy, unfriendly grin back, his free hand sliding his headphones back into place.

_[Soundtrack: Foo Fighters – No Way Back]_

The brunette suddenly rushed straight forward, both arms crossed before her head, as the boy expertly started sidestepping to outflank Ron. The young man simply crouched, both hands hanging easily at his sides, the grin still on his face as his eyes tracked all his opponents in quick, barely discernible flickers of his pupils. His heels began to lightly bounce up and down, ready to spring in any direction.

"Ron!" Wade's warning yell was seconds too late, the impassive girl already having leapt in midair and slicing diagonally down with her leg, as her partner sprinted low to the ground. Victor's smile was murderous and wide as he watched his subordinates take down Ron-

The impact was almost thunderous as Ron's open palms slammed against the girl's foot and the boy's fist, legs spread wide and low to absorb the force of the strikes as he simultaneously blocked both.

Without pausing, the girl kicked off Ron's palm and whipped her other leg in the opposite direction, circle kicking his face, as the boy neatly retracted his outstretched arm while throwing his other fist low into his target's midsection. In response, the young man swayed back until his back nearly touched the ground, Genevieve's heels missing his nose by centimeters, his knee striking upward to parry away Reinhardt's gut punch and the other leg skidding back to maintain his balance. Both of Ron's palms clenched shut as he did so, dark blue embers bursting from between his fingers.

His skidding foot plowed the concrete-dusted lawn beneath him before coming to a halt, the other leg stamping hard onto the ground, as Ronald crossed both arms over his head and suddenly swept them apart downward. Unbridled indigo power blasted upward in a circle around him, a twirling whirlwind of energy that light up the entire street. Both of his assailants rapidly fell back before the crackling vortex could catch them, the girl elegantly backflipping and landing in a catlike crouch, the boy dodging away a couple of dozen feet in a single jump.

The blue flames died down slowly, revealing Ron still standing in the same casual stance and the same mirthless grin on his face. One hand rose up and slipped an earphone off, as the young man chuckled softly. "Right. So _that_ just happened." His feet began to bounce up and down again, fingers flexing at his sides. "Since I think y'all done underestimating me, what do you peeps say about not holding back this time?"

The girl slowly stood back up in a sinuous motion, brushing her bangs away in a nonchalant motion. "Commander," she spoke in a soft voice with a faintly Continental accent, her entire demeanor still expressionless, "requesting permission for combat escalation."

"Already?" Victor growled. "I am surprised, Genevieve – you're never the first to call for escalation." He breathed an exasperated sigh and shrugged, pressing the bridge of his glasses to his nose. "Very well, we don't have all night – _try _not to break him into too many pieces."

The other boy laughed, speaking for the first time with only the faintest hint of a German accent. "We will do our best, _Befehlshaber _Halberton-Prescott. By your leave, then?"

Victor nodded, a vile smirk on his lips. "On my orders, stage one combat restrictions are hereby lifted. Peacekeeping modes have been rescinded – _assault mode is in effect_."

"If the bad guy monologues and cool codewords are all done, I'd like to kick your butts and go now," Ronald called out, one loosely hanging hand flaring into cobalt flames. "Me and my homeslice here have places to go and people to see, so if you don't mind, miss –"

"My name," the girl cut him off with regal disdain, "is Genevieve Wellington, _Marquessa_ Cairefax, Global Justice Elite Tactical Squad First _Lef_tenant, combat tactician for the Verdict Of Steel." She slowly began to pull off her unblemished white gloves, continuing to talk down to Ron. "You will address me with all due respect befitting my station and rank –"

"You should know, I don't like hitting ladies first - I don't like hitting ladies _at all_ - but what with the kind of girls I know, you'll have to accept my apologies for doing this." Without a word of warning, the black haired young man thrust out his hand, a horizontal pillar of blue fire engulfing the girl right in the middle of her speech.

Wade winced. "Ron – _uncalled_ for!"

His friend gave him a sheepish smile and shrugged, both palms up. "Dude, what was I supposed to do? She wouldn't stop talking; besides, I didn't hit her too hard –"

" – But if you find your limited brain capacity unable to remember that," a haughty female voice beside him continued, "my call sign... is _Norn_." Ron's face twisted to one side as a pair of white gloves hit him solidly on the cheek.

Several dozen feet away from them, the brown haired boy snapped his fingers twice in a peculiar cadence, raising his right arm slightly over his head. "And I am _Waffenritter_ Reinhardt Einschreibe – a humble second _leutnant_, and the designated marksman." Scattered cubes of light began to wink into existence around his upraised arm.

Wade's eyes bugged out. "Matter transference! I thought GJ was still years away from perfecting it!" He turned in desperation. "Ron, _dodge_!" the hacker yelled.

"And my call sign," the boy added conversationally, lowering his arm and aiming a sleek black assault rifle at Ronald, "is Judgement."

The muzzle of his weapon spat ironshod hate.


	18. HR 10: Zero Day Exploit

Hanuman Rising Arc Chapter 10 - Zero-Day Exploit

* * *

RONALD STOPPABLE barely managed to stagger out of the way, tungsten core projectiles whining around him and tearing up chunks of soil beneath his feet. His ears were ringing, vision weaving in and out of clarity like patches of fast moving fog. The entire left side of his face alternated between numbed shock and bone-crunching pain; he knew without a doubt that had he not twisted his neck to negate the strike at the right time, his jaw would have been shattered.

_Two _s_ilk_ gloves_?_ _Are you _serious_?_ _I just got knocked silly by a spoiled rich girl who went _Men In Tights_ on me? _

_(You can angst later, brat, now start fighting back!) _the Black Lotus roared in his mind.

The crimefighter kicked hard off the ground, high explosive rounds bursting inches beneath his shoes. Aiming for the parapet of the Bueno Nacho's sombrero roof, he twisted his body in midair and kicked off of it again with both feet, launching himself diagonally above the pair of attackers.

"Blast boost, load flechettes," Genevieve calmly commanded into her collar-attached tactical radio, as she sprinted beneath Ronald's arcing form. The German boy responded instantly, aiming his weapon right at his partner, one hand cocking an attachment slung beneath the rifle's barrel. One eye closed, one breath was taken, and a minigrenade barked towards the combat tactician.

Above them both, Ron swung his body upside down into a somersault, one cybernetic thumb clicking his katana's guard away from the scabbard and letting gravity slide it out.

Beneath him, the brunette leapt straight up as the minigrenade slammed into the churned soil, its penetration fuse igniting less than a second later. Genevieve spun around, expertly eyeing the explosion reaching up to her before kicking again off the approaching blast wave. Behind her, a half empty rifle magazine _clunked _to the ground as Reinhardt slammed a new one in and raised the barrel in one swift motion.

Ronald's other hand snatched up the falling katana before it dropped too far away, a ripple of thin blue wisps snaking up the obsidian blade from his arm.

"_Reforge! Twin Decision!"_

The Black Lotus seemed to erupt into hungry ebon tendrils, trails of livid darkness drifting off the sword's edge. The young man's free hand reached into the tumbling black, yanking out a dark-bladed short sword, as the tendrils dissipated to reveal another short sword where his katana was.

The white-clad girl shot up as her target plummeted, pulling in both legs close to her body. The moment Genevieve's altitude matched Ron's, both feet lashed out in a barrage of sequential kicks that sang out in the night air. A cacophony of noise ensued as the crimefighter desperately parried off her strikes with both swords, limbs battling obsidian, the two combatants hanging in midair for a long second as over several dozen attacks and counterattacks were launched within the lifetime of a blink.

Below them, Reinhardt's lips curved into a small smile. One fist gripped the restraint bolt on his rifle, slamming it back into the ready position as a dimunitive holographic gunsight appeared above the barrel. Both arms flexed as he raised the weapon upwards, the hologram acquiring and locking onto Ron's form.

"_Anfang."_

The midair deadlock broke as Genevieve spun her entire body, launching a vicious side kick at her opponent's ribs. Both blades snapped up, blocking the strike in an X-pattern and trapping her leg between the flat of his blades. Ron gave her a lopsided, upside down smile as they both began to plunge. "Gotcha!"

"Hardly." She spun herself along the axis of her leg, torque forcing the blades to separate as both feet contacted his chest. Heels dug into his skin as she ran _up_ his body, and jumped above. A sound like ripping cloth buzzed, Reinhardt's finger hard on the trigger as he emptied the entire clip at Ron the moment his partner was clear.

_Bullets, _Ron thought fast, his arms preparing to slash, _no prob, I can parry or slice them down –_

The black-clad young man yelled out in pain, as each bullet vaporized into a cloud of hot steel fragments just feet away from him, too many and too small to defend against. They tore into his flesh with mindless hunger, barely missing his eyes, blocked by the crossed blades he'd instinctively raised.

Above him, Genevieve watched the molten shards rip through him with clinical satisfaction, impassively noting the sudden cloud of blood and steel behind Ron. She twirled downards at him, arms at her sides in perfect diving form. Judgement impaired by pain, he didn't notice her streaking down at him until her hand grabbed the collar of his jacket – and began to spin.

Reinhardt's finger slid off the trigger to a side panel on his gun; thumb depressed on a button and rewarded him with the expected click. With barely a squint, he carefully gauged the distances before launching three proximity-fused, directional grenades in a staggered line ahead of him. The underbarrel launcher belched with each shot, the ordnance smashing and digging into the ground.

The smile on his face never wavered.

"_Mitte_._"_

Their target was completely disoriented by now as the pair spiraled downward, a black and white comet trailing red into the atmosphere. A dozen feet from the ground, the girl wrung herself into an upright position, both graceful hands on Ron's neck, before slamming him down headfirst right on top of the first proximity grenade.

Genevieve nimbly dodged away from the directional burst as Ron's prone, barely conscious form was blown forward – directly onto the next grenade. Without a word she began sprinting alongside her target's hurtling body.

The German marksman pressed another button and cranked the bolt on his rifle again all the way back. From beneath the launcher attachment, two steel bipod legs swung down and extended, as a series of clicks announced that the rifle's barrel was reconfiguring itself into a much longer shape. Reinhardt snapped his fingers twice in another pattern, a nearly foot long bullet teleporting into his hand. He slammed the round home into the breech mechanism opened by the bolt, knocked it back shut with the heel of his palm, and then took aim at Ronald's flung body.

The second grenade erupted as the young man landed right on it, hurling him away yet again towards the third. Genevieve had overtaken him at that point, and she skidded sideways to a stop well behind the last booby trap. The girl turned slightly, one arm lowered and the other raised in a combat stance, watching as her opponent landed on the third and final explosive.

Gouts of churned earth and rock vomited into the sky, Ronald Stoppable's body pinwheeling upward like a discarded toy with barely any consciousness or control. Gravity began to slow his rise, bringing him gradually to a halt and finally clawed him back down to the ground. He fell face up, right into the path of the agent called Norn.

Genevieve took three quick steps before hurling herself in midair, twisting her hips into three side spinning axe kicks. The first one hit Ron directly in the back, knocking him back up. The second arrested his rise, connecting squarely on his chest and smashing him into the ground. The last one smashed into his face, her foot lingering there for a second before heaving him away with a mighty thrust kick follow up.

Reinhardt took one last look through his targeting system at his opponent's limp form, skidding hard through the devastated ground, before pulling the trigger.

The crack of the antiarmor round exiting his rifle barrel at hypersonic speed shattered the windows of the Bueno Nacho and cracked panes for hundreds of feet around. The surface immediately beneath the rifle muzzle was smashed down into a cracked concave from the shockwave, fogs of propellant venting out the sides of the weapon in angry hisses. The spent casing flew through the ejection port end over end, glowing white from the heat and pressure before burying itself halfway into the abused soil with a dull _thunk_.

In front of Wade's horrified, helpless eyes, the bullet penetrated clean into Ron and exited bloodily out the other side.

"_RON!"_

The German boy had already slung his rifle over his shoulder and turned away to Victor. He didn't need to take a second look at his handiwork – he always knew when he had made a clean kill.

"_Ende."_


	19. HR 11: Tank, Support, and Two DPS

Hanuman Rising Arc – Chapter 11: Tank, Support, And Two DPS

* * *

"SHOT CLEAN THROUGH the scapula, _mein kommandant," _Reinhardt reported with a nonchalant air, his rifle resting against his shoulder. "I took the liberty of assuming you wanted him alive, so I broke his arm instead. He will perhaps never play American football again, but then that is no care of ours, is it not?"

"Indeed? Well done, _Herr_ Einschreibe." Victor smiled beneath his glasses. "You are correct, of course, in anticipating my thoughts." He glanced at the dirt cloud rising from where Ron had ungracefully landed with derision. "While perhaps it would have been a much neater solution to eliminate him, sadly, that was not within our current mission parameters." The golden-haired team leader fixed his glasses again with his pinkie. "We, therefore, will proceed to exfiltrate the target and deliver him to the Restriction Block – though I suppose we should patch him up some." This last statement was spat out with distaste. "It wouldn't do to have our prisoner bleed out in the helicopter now, would it?"

_"VICTOR!" _Wade roared in a frenzy, charging at Victor in blind rage. _"What did you do to him, you son of a-!"_

His breath left him in the next moment, a leg expertly placed in his path tripping him head over heels, Genevieve's face looking down on him impassively as her left hand pinned his neck to the ground.

"Be advised, Mister Load," she warned him casually, as the hacker ineffectually struggled against her grip, "you are on the very precipice of commiting an act we can prosecute you for. May I remind you, you are no longer a member of Global Justice. A civilian such as you, could easily be charged with what would amount to acts of terrorism." Her face tilted gently to one side, still otherwise completely expressionless. "Your absentee father and dear mother would be most saddened, although, perhaps she would also be accused of being an accomplice?"

"You... _you wouldn't DARE!_" Wade screamed past the chokehold, fingers still trying to pry himself free as Genevieve's implication dawned upon him.

"We needn't _dare_ anything," Victor laughed at him cruelly, walking over to look down on him. "This, Mister Load, is _justice_. _We _are justice. Strong, unyielding, _unforgiving_. This is the new reality, Mister Load. We produce true results, not the merry go round of sprees and escapes so prevalent in your time. And the common man will stand behind us so long as we continue to deliver the justice they so thirst for." He shook his head in arrogant smugness. "Your time is done, Wade Load, as is Ronald Stoppable's." Victor raised his arms, a prophet pronouncing the doom of the land, the smile on his face wide and certain. Behind him, the black clad troopers began to form up and move towards Ron's prostrate form. "It is now _all over _for your kind," he boomed, "while _our_ deeds will ring throughout the ages!"

"_Yo, Ozymandias! 'Look on my works, ye mighty', and _KISS_ my WELL DEVELOPED POSTERIOR!"_

As a group, the three Verdict members snapped their heads to the side, towards the source of the yell – and saw a large pickup truck careen over the ruined streets up a large slab of concrete. The vehicle flew into the air, three figures jumping out the side doors right before it launched itself off the ground. It glided for a few seconds, slowing down at the apex of its arc, and then began to drop straight down towards the Global Justice assault transport.

Victor barely flinched, watching as the large helicopter was engulfed in flames, the fuel and ammunition inside cooked off from the impact. A small frown creased his face, before he turned to VTR troopers. "Element one, secure perimeter. Find those -"

A thicket of giant, thorned vines interrupted him, bursting up from beneath the ground to trap the assault troops. Weapons fell freely to the ground as plant matter immobilized bodies and pinned limbs, neutralizing the entire team in seconds. Black clad men cursed and struggled, but the foliage held strong and true.

Genevieve tilted her body a centimeter, green tendrils shooting up from the ground missing her by the barest margin. A backhand from her fist sliced through the living thicket, followed by a backflip towards safety when another cage of thickets tried to entrap her within. She skidded to a halt next to Victor, who had a taken a step back, assessing the changing situation through narrowed eyes.

Wade was still gasping for breath, stars swimming in his vision as meticulously filed nails dug into his arm, helping him up somewhat ungently with a steel grip. "All right, tech-geek, up and at 'em. I'd have thought a genius like you would have known better than to attack super agents. Props for trying, though."

The hacker coughed again, one eye closed as he turned to look at his rescuers in disbelief. "Shego? Drakken? Um... Mr. Winchester? What are you all _doing_ here?"

The large, wide man he'd met before, the person he knew as Ron's mentor at university, just grinned back. "Hey, kiddo. We heard there was some trouble 'round these parts, decided to take a look."

Shego cleared her throat, looking wryly at the teacher with one eye raised. "You know, you totally quoted 'Ozymandias' wrong back there."

Grant blinked, and grinned again a little sheepishly. "I took some artistic liberties, seemed appropriate at the time. I didn't know you liked to read Shelley, though."

The green skinned woman shrugged nonchalantly, brushing the knees of her trousers where she'd landed on. "Used to teach it, actually."

"... you used to teach?"

"Oh, come on, someone like _you_ has got NO right to give me that look. I'll have you know I was pretty darned good at it!"

The large man raised his hands in acquiesence. "Okay, okay! You just didn't look like the type."

"Yeah, Mrs. Baltimore used to say that too," she grunted wryly.

"_Baltimore?_ You had Gertrude 'Gettysburg' Baltimore _too_? Just how _old_ is that crone?"

"SHEGO!" A shout rang out from behind them, before repeating itself as a piteous plea. "Shego?" Drakken stumbled out of the smoke and mists, bruised and disheveled, one hand on his hip. "I think I just threw out my back, or something... couldn't you have _caught_ me?"

"Oh please, doc, you can control plants – why didn't you land in a bed of begonias, or maybe petunias?"

"But you told me to trap the enemies first!"

"Couldn't you do _both_?"

"... oh, huh. Now that you mentioned it... I guess I didn't really think that one through."

A cold, unbelieving laugh rang out, causing all four to turn their heads. "What.. is this? _What is this?_" Victor stared at them, eyes beneath the glasses wide with madness, a smile fixed on his face. "Two washed up, _has-been_, second rate super villain _pretenders_ – and Ron Stoppable's _college advisor_? What manner of ill advised joke is this? Did the three of you truly plan to try and stop _us_?"

Behind Shego, Grant sheepishly raised his hand. "We, uh, didn't really plan anything. I was walking around when these two sort of picked me up."

"In my spare truck." Drakken grumbled as he stepped forward. "Which Edward gave me last year. Which is now the _second_ legal vehicle of mine that Shego blew up."

"You didn't say a _thing_ when I told you we should crash it into the copter!"

"Second vehicle."

"I thought you hated that souped up jalopy!"

"Second vehicle." Drakken folded his arms with a sulking expression.

"Oh, _whatever!_"

Victor's eyebrows lowered, the smile on his face growing more rigid and feral. "I do believe that none of you are quite aware of the ramifications of what you've done here. Apart from the obvious – that you are interfering with a Global Justice operation – the two of you should be aware that your amnesty could easily be nullified as a result of your actions. _I_, therefore, feel obligated to give you fair warning." His pinkie rearranged his spectacles before continuing. "Leave now, and I will generously ignore this foolish act of defiance." One eyebrow slowly rose. "Continue, however, and my associates will make short work of you."

Wade staggered back, one hand massaging his bruised neck. "Be careful, guys – the two next to him just took out Ron. He's still alive, but he's beat up pretty bad and bleeding."

"What are we looking at here, Wade?" Grant asked with quiet calm, one hand loosening his tie as the other flexed his large fingers.

The hacker blinked back at him, before realizing what he was asking, and turn back to the three Verdict members. "Brown haired kid's got a high powered assault rifle with grenade launcher, probably other attachments. He can teleport in ammo and gear, so don't count on him running out," Wade rattled off, assessing their enemies quickly. "He can also fight hand to hand, so watch for that. The girl is close range, very fast, and very, very _good_. She's their combat tactician, smart, and probably the more dangerous one. Blondie's their commander, and I've never seen him in combat, but assume he's as good, if not better than the other two."

Shego stepped forward with a nasty grin on her face. "Okay, little girl, bedtime for -" She stopped when Grant threw an arm in front of her. "Um. Excuse me?"

"You and the doc take care of the rifleman. I'll handle the girl."

The mercenary glared at him in disbelief. "Who died and made you boss? And, uh, mister, you're a _teacher -_"

"And so were you, you just said." The large man grinned at her for a moment. "I know you're a close combat expert, Shego – I've seen the news and heard the stories. That's why you and the doc take care of the shooter."

"And you're going to take on the girl who just went a round with the monkey? You and what army?"

"It's a tactical decision," Grant went on in a lecturing tone, sliding biker gloves onto his fists. "The faster we can take out the rifleman, the better."

Wade blinked, and then burst out. "I get it! Even if Genevieve's the better fighter, Reinhardt's more dangerous becase he can pin you down with his weapon fire, making it easy for her to pick you off. If Drakken can help Shego get into close quarters with him and take him out fast, we stand a better chance!"

Grant paused, and sheepishly scratched his head. "Well... now that you put it that way... it does kinda sound like a good plan, huh? Nice thinking, kiddo."

Drakken raised an eyebrow. "Listen, Mister Winchester, Shego and I, we're supervillains ("Shyeah, right, _we,_" Shego smirked) – what chance do you think you've got against _them_?"

The college teacher cracked his knuckles. "I should be able to hold her off long enough – I'm built real tough, and I doubt she can beat me, even if I can't beat her. Either way we'll have an advantage with that plan."

Genevieve clucked her tongue. "I would not be so sanguine with the assessment, Mister Winchester. In fact, I do believe you have insulted my honour." The first signs of annoyance crossed her placid face. "Whilst we were instructed to take Stoppable alive, I believe we did not receive any other specific commands regarding unwelcome intrusions – did we not, Commander?"

Victor crossed his arms, tapping one finger against the rim of his glasses. "I do think we'll want to take the two has-beens alive, if only to further cement our current policy in front of the media. As for the big fool, however..." He smiled. "Consider it a gift, my lady. Teach the rest of them a lesson – you have my approval to _kill him_."

Grant just grinned back, pushing Wade behind him as Shego and Drakken fanned out to his sides. "You have my approval to _try_, you _little pissant_."


	20. HR 12: A Small Talent For War

Hanuman Rising Arc – Chapter 12: A Small Talent For War

* * *

THERE WAS NO WARNING, no call for quarter nor advisement to desist. Agent Norn, close combat specialist and tactician, simply sprinted flat out towards Grant.

The impact was deafening, as the young girl's fist rammed against the teacher's forearms, held up and close together in a boxing defense. There was no pause as she suddenly dropped to one knee and lashed viciously out with the other one. The thud was equally loud as a large calf, steel tough beneath the deceptively loose pants, was raised to parry the kick.

Genevieve recovered, pulling her leg back in and backsliding several paces away from Grant. "You largely delay the inevitable, oaf," she uttered in negligent contempt. "Whilst you may have some small experience in crude brawling, you shan't stand a chance against a trained fighter. You would have had a tad more luck with the mercenary, although not a great deal."

"S'all right, lady," Grant grinned, clenching and unclenching his fists, shuffling side to side on the balls of his feet. "If worse comes to worse, I could always block your hits with my face."

"T'would be a marked improvement, I would think." She lowered her stance, arms crossed in front of her face with her hands open flat. "Shall I end this farcical display? You obviously mean to only play for time, after all."

"Mebbe," the teacher answered with a chuckle, still doing that peculiar shuffle. "Of course, it would be one serious downer if I ended up _winning _and whupping you from here to Albequerque, now, wouldn't it?"

Behind him, Wade was making a strangled noise from deep within his throat. "Mister Winchester, I really don't think you should antagonize her any more than she already is..."

The large, broad man didn't turn, but the hacker could see his cheeks crinkle in a smile. "Look after Stopps, Wade. Relax - I got this."

"Hardly." The brunette charged forward again in the middle of the word – this time straight at Wade.

* * *

"Ah, shall it be you two, then? The survivors of the Lorwardian conflict?" Reinhardt held the rifle to his chest and bowed exaggeratedly to the pair facing him. "It would be my honor, indeed."

"You're cute, hon, but you're a little too young for me. Cut the gentleman act, okay?" Shego pulled back the sleeves of her bomber jacket and tightened her black gloves, walking a circle around the sniper.

"My _Mutter und Vater_ raised me to be polite, _fraulein _Shego, so I may say it is no act." He turned and inclined his head to the nervous looking Drakken, who was sidling to Shego's side. "And as for you, _Herr_ Lipski, it is a pleasure to meet such a famous and learned scholar. I do regret being the one to take you in, but circumstances dictate events, I am afraid."

The blue skinned doctor turned a shade towards pastel and gulped, eyes clearly fixated on the weapon. "I, uh, I'd think you got this one, don't you, Shego?"

Her eyes rolled up in exasperation. "Seriously, Doc? What happened to all that talk about being a 'formidable opponent' and 'true power'?!"

"He has a _gun_, Shego!"

"Well, ten points for observation, Drew! What did you think he'd have, a ping pong paddle?"

The sound of the rifle's bolt being pulled back, and a bullet being chambered, rang through their argument. "Shall we, then?"

* * *

Genevieve's fist whistled through the cold night air, her arm describing a gracefully curved arc as she launched a deadly hook directly towards Wade's temple.

The punch was two inches short, the force of it blowing a cold wind across Wade's cringing face, as Norn was tackled sideways by Grant. The two of them, diminutive assassin and hulking professor, tumbled together onto the churned ground several yards away. Grant tried to pin her to the ground, leveraging his size advantage.

"A most unwise decision, oaf." She smirked up at him, nimbly parrying away his hand. "Allow me to demonstrate."

A lightning fast left-right combination caught him off guard, rattling his jaw. Before he could get his bearings, the brunette slid her knees up to his stomach to create space between them, both slender hands grabbing at the wrist he was using to trap her. The girl slid sideways smoothly beneath him, yanking his arm straight over her chest and suddenly locking her ankles around his shoulder joint.

"Oh_crap-_" Grant's eyes went wide as Norn yanked harder, realizing his mistake as she began to hyperextend his limb in a textbook arm bar. Tendons and muscles immediately began to scream in agony, as the girl pushed his arm away from his body far beyond the limits nature had dictated. Eyes calm and detached, she hung on, her entire weight starting to pull his bones from their sockets.

"GRANT!" Wade yelled out, seeing the inevitable already beginning to occur. "She'll dislocate your arm! You gotta BREAK THAT HOLD!"

"Such a basic mistake," Genevieve lectured in a clinical tone, feet pressed against the professor's torso and pulling back. "I had almost hoped – perhaps assumed would be more accurate – that one with your body mass and misplaced confidence in close combat would have had basic training in mixed martial arts. My original surmise of you as an oaf was, I'm afraid, dreadfully correct." The edge of her lips curled up as Grant screamed, elbow and shoulder joints making satisfying popping noises. "Even your acquaintance, who obviously knows nothing of exercise or training, was able to figure out what was certain to happen. Well, then. I suppose it's time to end this."

One last tug backwards, and the sickening noise of a joint separating from the rest of the body echoed over the battlefield.

Norn let go of the useless arm and sinuously slid up Grant's back in a single fluid motion, before hammering an elbow to the back of his head. She neatly hopped off his body as he tumbled forward on his face like a fallen tree. Without looking back, she disdainfully clapped her hands together to dislodge any dust, and began to stride towards the wide eyed Wade. He was scrambling backwards, blindly grabbing at his laptop and desperately flipping it open.

"Now that he's been sorted, Mister Load, I'm afraid it's time to remand you to the proper authorities. Since you've already shown resistance, I've no choice but to use force on you." She stared viciously at him, flexing her fingers. "I truly do regret having to do this."

"Voice override, abbreviated boot sequence!" the hacker yelled in panic, the screen flashing to a blue tinted life. "Absolute Logic Theorem, compile and run!"

A disembodied voice responded. "_Warning. Compile status at 57%. Stress test indicates algorithm instability certain-_"

"Override! Emergency compile and run algorithm, NOW!"

"_Confirm emergency override._"

Genevieve's eyes narrowed at the exchange, and she took a step forward to pummel Wade into oblivion before he could press another button or say another word.

"HEY! We ain't done yet, lady!"

The hacker's eyes widened in disbelief, looking behind her as though he were staring at a ghost. Genevieve closed her eyes, letting out a breath in exasperation, before turning around. "Would you please have the good manners to _stay_ incapacitated?"

Grant was standing up, the lopsided grin still on his face as his right arm hung at a horrible angle to the rest of his body. "Sorry, lady. Guess you just can't keep a good man down."

"I have had just about _enough_ of this nonsense." Genevieve's eyes rapidly tracked his vital spots, mind going down a list of death strokes within a second. _Begin palm strike to throat/crush larynx/other arm elbow to solar plexus/interrupt heartbeat/transition to thumb joint to temple/shut down nervous system/end with chokehold into neck snap/sever spinal cord _– her feet were already moving as she calculated Grant's demise. Without another word, she rushed him.

The large man's eyes closed, both arms hanging down in a resigned gesture of defeat.

"MR. WINCHESTER!"

Norn allowed herself a rare smile as the heel of her palm surged unerringly towards his neck.

The next second her arm went numb and was flailed away as a resounding crack slammed against her chest, skidding her backwards a couple of dozen feet away. She suddenly fell to one knee, coughing, the breath knocked out of her completely. She stared up from under her bangs, teeth gritted in surprise and hate. "What-"

The teacher stood serenely, eyes still closed, one knee bent forward and the other leg swept gracefully behind him. His good left arm was held out before him, palm open horizontally. Grant's eyes slowly opened, a contemplative yet ruthless calm behind them, as he straightened up. "You were correct in saying I made a basic mistake – but not in technique." He touched his dangling right arm without any sign of pain, before looking back at Genevieve. "My mistake was much more fundamental, and in two parts. The first was underestimating you." He suddenly grabbed his dislocated limb, and with a horrible noise slammed it back into the socket without wincing.

"Futile," Genevieve commented contemptuously, standing back up and wiping her mouth with the back of two fingers. "The pain alone would render that arm useless for weeks, and the nerve damage I've inflicted assures that you shan't be able to manipulate it in any case."

Grant ignored her, raising his left hand, two fingers stretched out, and suddenly slammed them against his right elbow in rapid succession, striking various locations around the bicep. "Underestimating anyone is clearly an unforgivable mistake in combat, as well as a grave insult to a skilled combatant - but I've tried long and hard to fight my nature, to follow what I've taught, and to renounce the violence in my blood." He flexed his right arm and raised his right hand, wiggling his fingers without visible surprise before folding his arm behind his back.

"Impossible!" Norn snarled, as Wade gasped at the same time. The hacker was well versed in the human body, and he knew there was no logical way or medical technique that would allow an arm so damaged to recover so quickly.

The teacher tilted his head to look at the combat tactician. Gone from his eyes was the easy-going, laid-back college teacher; he scrutinized Genevieve with a gaze that spoke of utter calm, quiet violence, and ancient sadness. "The second mistake was believing – hoping, in fact – that I could somehow avoid hurting you."

"You shall _not_ condescend me, oaf! Your empty bravado ends _HERE!_" Cold fury suffusing her veins, she covered the distance between them in a single bound, standing in front of him between eyeblinks and lashing out with a storm of punches.

Grant's left arm matched her strike for strike, but where her fists were precise bullets of rage, his open hand parried them away with an almost lazy gracefulness that belied his stature. His defense never directly stopped their power but instead, casually redirected them away. Gentle backhands deflected her blows, his eyes still calm, and his right arm still held behind him. He never moved from his spot, feet firmly planted yet relaxed.

Without any motion that could be called sudden or quick, the back of his hand flicked upward, sending her fist high, before snaking back and then in a single flowing motion, striking her chest with his open palm, slamming her back again away from him. Although the motion was deliberate, almost unhurried, the resulting hit echoed with a violent whip crack.

Genevieve coughed again, this time blood dripping down her lip as she fell to her hands and knees. The sight of her blood dripping onto the soil only enraged her, and she looked up at Grant. "Pre-... preposterous! That style... someone like you shouldn't be able to use it!"

The teacher neatly retracted his hand, folding both arms behind him. "Let me tell you a story, young lady. My vocation, after all, is teaching, and perhaps this will be illuminating for you."

The brunette staggered up to her feet, knees wobbling as she gasped in lungfuls of precious air. "Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiujitsu, even Shotokan... all of these would have been possible for someone of your size and frame..." She staggered towards him, pride refusing to admit superiority, logic refusing to believe what she had already witnessed.

"There was once an ogre who despised the world, but unlike most of his kind, wished simply to be left alone," Grant continued, tranquil and undisturbed. "But, being an ogre, many traveled to find him and kill him, to become famous and respected. He, of course, killed them all, but made no move to otherwise disturb humans, as all he wanted was to be left alone. Nevertheless, as he defeated more and more hunters, he became more and more famous, thus causing even more people to seek him out and slay him.

But, one day, a wise man came, and to his surprise, simply asked the ogre for shelter from the elements. Surprised at this, the ogre gladly, if suspiciously, welcomed the wise man. To thank him, the wise man offered to teach him – all he could offer in return, really. Nevertheless, the ogre was happy to finally find someone who treated him kindly, and eagerly learned all the wise man had to teach. In time, the ogre learned the rudiments of civilization, and spent many a happy hour discussing with the wise man."

Genevieve snarled again. "How _dare _you mock me with your stories!" She stood her ground, lowering her stance to resume the attack.

"One day, the wise man asked him what his dearest wish was, and of course, the ogre answered honestly. To be left alone, to live in peace and leave others in peace. And the wise man laughed, and told him that while his aim was admirable, peace was the greatest paradoxical goal in life. For peace, he said, inevitably incites war within the warlike, and war encourages peace within the peaceful.

'How then, will I find the answer?' the ogre asked in bewilderment.

'In order to understand peace,' the wise man responded, 'you must understand chaos.'

'How then, will I live my life?' the ogre asked in despair.

'In order to understand how to live,' the wise man responded, 'you must understand death.'

And so the wise man taught him his fist, before finally leaving to continue his journey. And the ogre took his learning to heart, for he left his lair, and encamped in the open where any could find him."

The brunette agent charged him again, this time opening with a slashing side kick. The teacher gracefully leaned back, the foot missing him by inches, as Genevieve followed up with another kick from her other leg. Grant simply twirled on one foot, the second kick thrusting against air. But the agent simply leaned into the kick, aiming an elbow at his nose, too close to be dodged.

His previously damaged right arm snaked out, his wrist slapping away the outside of her elbow before twisting in a serpentine motion, twining down the crook of her arm and locking it against his, pulling her closer.

"Many hunters and heroes came to slay the ogre," Grant went on, ignoring her struggles, "but with the fist he had been taught, he killed them all instead. Day in, and day out, the ogre would fight a never ending battle, never ceasing for rest, knowing that in the endless fight lay his path to peace. And so his would-be slayers fell, one by one, day in and day out, until their bodies formed a great mountain." A peaceful smile without mirth or mercy crossed his lips. "And soon enough, no one wished to dare disturb the ogre any longer. The mountain was a warning to all who would interrupt his beloved peace, and would serve as the new home where he would quietly spend his life – to live and leave others in peace."

"_Wing Chun!_" Norn spat at him, in disbelief and rage. "How could a brutish oaf like you... be able to use such a martial art!"

"But legend has it that should the ogre be disturbed, should his peace be threatened, then he would come down from his mountain, and leave devastation and calamity in his wake." The smile suddenly disappeared, and for a moment to Wade his face looked like that of a benevolent deity who had finally been enraged.

"Congratulations, lady. You just hit the jackpot. You've successfully called down the ogre."


End file.
